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Persevere

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Feelings of trust can swell in moments particularly touched by the Lord’s grace, power, wisdom, comfort, or love. The loyalty ignited by this encounter however can either burn out quickly like thin kindling or develop into embers so strong and hot that rather than going out, it ignites everything that touches it. These coals emerge however from walking with the Lord amidst the daily grind, from persevering with faithful trust through long periods of the ordinary, and especially long periods of struggle.

The Israelites followed God across the dried floor of the parted Red Sea, yet their relationship with the Lord did not climax at that moment, but rather only began. The weakness of their trust in God, and the need for it to be grown through patient perseverance, would be shown in the desert.

At one point, when they had reached the limits of their faith, and they “tested the LORD, saying, “Is the LORD in our midst or not?” (Exodus 17:7), God mercifully provided a visible sign of His presence and providence by quenching their thirst with miraculous water from a rock.

God can do anything. We can put our trust in His ability to transform us and those we love, no matter how long it takes. St. Paul offers us the encouragement that “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6), and “ We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28).

Jesus assures us that with even the smallest seed of faith mountains can be moved. “For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. (Matthew 17:20).

Yet, we often imagine this happening within tidy time frames. It’s so hard to wait. Especially when it means waiting on someone else. But do we trust God or not?

In the Lord’s mercy, He refreshes us along the way with reminders of His continued knowledge of our need, that He is in fact in our midst, and that He’s still leading us along the narrow way. If you are struggling to wait with patience, ask the Lord for a touch of His grace. It’s okay to pray, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:34).

This is the purpose of Lent. It draws us into the desert where we discover the truth of our weakness. Rather than giving up in discouragement, just ask God for help. “Jesus, I can’t do this, I need your grace.” He will provide it. Christ doesn’t wait for us to be perfect, He comes to help us while we are still imperfect. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Hopefully as we experience His help in moments of weakness regarding small things like our Lenten commitments to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, our trust in Him will grow so that when we experience greater trials like the Cross, we will confidently turn to Him again, relying on His grace to bring us through the Cross to the Resurrection. Love always wants to help, and “God is Love” (1 John 4:8).

Sunday Scripture Readings for the 3rd Sunday of Lent

© 2023 Angela M Jendro

Scripture verses are from the Revised Standard Version

Sunday Food For Thought…Gratitude

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Scripture Readings

Food For Thought

*Pray and Reflect with full meditations in my book Take Time For Him: Remain In His Love

Meditation Reflection: Luke 17:11-19

Consider the saying, “I owe you a debt of gratitude”.  The virtue of justice means giving each person his or her due.  When someone offers us a gratuitous kindness, we do in fact “owe” them our gratitude. I don’t mean this in the sense of a gift with strings attached, but rather as an expression of virtue and right relationship.  When someone offers a mercy in love, it is relational – they offer something of themselves to you as a gift.  If you in turn offer your gratitude, then not only has there been an exchange of some good, but additionally an exchange of love and mutual encouragement.

Christ is the ultimate gratuitous giver. He gives His mercy in love, no strings attached.  Offering Him back our gratitude however, is good for us as it reciprocates love for love.  Christ promises our love will always be received and appreciated by Him.  Rather than walk away with a blessing as merely divine pity for your situation, return to the Lord the love and gratitude He truly deserves and rejoice in loving relationship  with Him Who is so abundantly good to us!

Practical Application:

Praise God!  Praise Him in SONG!  Here are a couple of recommendations:

Take Time For Him: Remain in His Love available in ebook or paperback. Order a copy and don’t miss a single week!

 

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© 2021 Angela M Jendro

Sunday Food For Thought…Clingy sin

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Scripture Readings

Food For Thought

*Pray and Reflect with full guided meditations in my book Take Time For Him: Remain In His Love

Meditation Reflection: 

Mud clings.  I remember walking home from school as a sixth grader one spring and cutting through an open lot only to find myself stopped in my tracks, literally.  My feet sunk into the mud so deeply that I couldn’t get my foot out for quite awhile and when I finally did my shoe remained behind!  Later when the ground dried enough for me to recover the shoe I learned just how tedious and difficult restoring it would be.

In St. Paul’s letter to the Hebrews today (12:1-4), he exhorts us to “rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us”.  Imagine Jeremiah being pulled out of the cistern.  Scripture describes it as having no water, “only mud, and Jeremiah sank into the mud” (Jeremiah 38:6).  How long it must have taken him to get cleaned up! Sin clings to us – whether we fell in by accident, were drawn into it by others, or simply formed the bad habit over time.  We might knock off big chunks at first but the tedium of removing the clingy bits in the crevices, grooves, and fibers can discourage us to the point of despair. However, St. Paul encourages us to persevere because muddy shoes slow you down and tire you out in a race and we are running the race to heaven. 

Thankfully you don’t have to do it alone, but you do need to ask for help.  The waters of grace have the power to cleanse even the most difficult stain. If we turn to Christ and ask the Holy Spirit to remove the clinging sin then it can be done.  Psalm 40:1-2 praises the Lord for just such a miracle:

“I have waited, waited for the LORD,

     and he stooped toward me.

The LORD heard my cry.

He drew me out of the pit of destruction,

     out of the mud of the swamp;

he set my feet upon a crag;

     he made firm my steps.”

We resist clingy people, pets, and even clothing because they restrict our freedom and flourishing.  Let us resist clingy sin for the same reason. It will require patience, perseverance, and prayer, but as St. Paul reminds us “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) and they give us hope that it can be done!

Take Time For Him: Remain in His Love available in ebook or paperback. Order a copy and don’t miss a single week!

 

Order the new set of guided meditations for this year’s Sunday Gospels!

 

© 2021 Angela M Jendro

Sunday Food For Thought: Taking a Leap of Faith

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This Sunday’s Scripture Readings

Food For Thought

*Pray and Reflect with a complete guided meditation in my book Take Time For Him: Remain In His Love

Meditation Reflection: Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19

St. Paul honors Abraham as a man of faith because Abraham acted on God’s word.  Abraham left his very comfortable home where he was already prosperous for a land that God would show him,  not one God had already shown to him.  Abraham received his son Isaac through two impossible circumstances in which he acted based on trust in God over trust in his own natural limitations: first, Isaac’s birth despite Abraham and Sarah’s old age and Sarah’s prior sterility, and secondly at the sacrifice of Isaac wherein Isaac’s life would be taken but would have to be restored by God.  Abraham acted on faith, he took huge risks. This wasn’t blind faith however, in some obscure and unknowable mythological or philosophical God.  Rather, Abraham responded in faith to a loving God Who revealed Himself to Abraham and Who reveals Himself to you and I even today. 

God acted in faith too and took a huge risk for us. God sent His only Son to become man, die for us, and rise again for our salvation.  Jesus Christ lived among us, taught profound Truth, and performed great miracles. This is the most historically verified fact of anyone in history. 

How will you and I respond to the revelation given to us?  Will we avoid the challenge and drown ourselves in distractions (like the unfaithful servant in Luke 12:32-48) or will we rise up like Abraham, our father in faith, and act.  

May we act, not on the reward we have in hand, but in faith in the God Who promises it and has given His own outstretched hand to us.

For a full guided Gospel Meditation on this Sunday’s readings, check out Take Time For Him: Remain in His Love available in ebook or paperback. Order a copy and don’t miss a single week!

 

Order the new set of guided meditations for this year’s Sunday Gospels!

 

© 2021 Angela M Jendro

Sunday Food For Thought: Excuses, Excuses…Be Brave! Be Determined!

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13th Sunday in Ordinary Time:   Scripture Readings

Food For Thought

*excerpt from Take Time For Him: Remain In His Love

Meditation Reflection: Luke 9:51-62

Being a Christian means following Christ, wherever and whenever He goes.  Full discipleship requires 100% commitment, not the made-to-order or pick and choose buffet we are accustomed to in our culture.  Consider Jesus’ own example.  He had to journey to Jerusalem and to sacrificial suffering.  Notice the attitude He chose – resolution and determination. 

Followers of Christ need the same resolution and determination.  St. Teresa of Avila, the great Spanish mystic, emphasized repeatedly the necessity of determination to advance in the spiritual life.  In her instructional work The Way of Perfection, she warned against our tendency to draw back and complain when things become difficult:

“Be determined, Sisters, that you came to die for Christ, not to live comfortably for Christ.”[i]

Saint Paul also exhorted the Corinthians to live their faith with bold resolution.  He warned against conditional discipleship and encouraged the Christian community to be generous and steadfast:

“The point is this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” 2 Corinthians 9:6-7

As Jesus journeyed doing the Father’s will, those He encountered each had an opportunity to join Him, but their conditional stipulations determined whether they would accept it or turn it down.  The Samaritans received messengers from Christ but rejected the Lord before He even arrived when they learned accepting Christ meant surrendering their bitterness toward Jerusalem.  The next person took the initiative to seek Jesus out and requested to be in His company. However Jesus, who knows the hearts of each one of us, also knew the man’s interior conditions for discipleship. Thus, Jesus cautioned him that He would provide spiritual security and comfort but not necessarily the feeling of physical security and comfort. 

The next two men Jesus invited to follow Him procrastinated and avoided discipleship by requesting to finish up their other work first.  Their requests seem valid and even noble.  In fact, burying the dead is a corporal work of mercy and honoring your father and mother is the 4th commandment. Is Jesus asking us to neglect our duties?  Does Christian discipleship excuse neglecting our families?  Does God contradict Himself?  No.  Do we sometimes rationalize our cowardice or weakness by twisting God’s commands against Him?  Yes.  It reminds me of kids who try to avoid chores by claiming they need to work on their homework all of a sudden.

Many of us (including myself!), often excuse our lack of time for prayer by pitting it against the active life of charity.  It sounds something like this: “I don’t have time to sit and pray because I need to do [fill in the blank] which God would want me to do.”  A practical example would be, “I could sit and pray/ ‘doing nothing’, or work an extra hour to provide for my family, or do a load of laundry and dishes, or run an errand.  God wants me to care for my family, that is my prayer.”  Sometimes that might be the case.  But, in truth, there’s usually time for both.  This mentality has sometimes been referred to as the heresy of activism. 

Spending quality time with Christ in prayer first is the foundation of discipleship. How can we follow Him if we rarely take time to listen? In addition, without prayer, even our loving activities can tend to be more self-loving rather than other-loving. Jesus knew the hearts of the two men who wanted to return to their families before following Him.  Rather than contradicting His command that we love one another, especially our families, He may have been calling them out on their rationalizations. 

Let’s face it, we have an inner desire for God, and we may even have authentic zeal for discipleship, but we also struggle with attachments that hold us back.  The good news is that if we open ourselves up to Christ in prayer, He will reveal those attachments to us and provide the grace to overcome them.  It requires resolution and determination, but with God all things are possible!  

[i] Kavanaugh, Kieran, and Otilio Rodriguez, translators. The Way of Perfection: A Study Edition. ICS, 2000.

Consider:

+ Like the Samaritans, how many of us hold on to bitterness, anger, or un-forgiveness? Prayerfully ask Christ to reveal if any of these are holding you back from following Him.  Pray for the grace to surrender it to the Lord.

+ Like the man who proclaimed he would follow Christ wherever He goes, consider why you are a Christian. Is your love for the Lord intermixed with some self-love as well?  Do you complain when you encounter trials?  Are you impatient or upset when you experience discomfort?

+ What rationalizations do you use to delay responding to Christ or to responding more generously?

Practical Application:

+ Each day this week thank God for one deterrent He has helped you overcome or from which He has freed you. Invite Him to reveal and free you from a current hindrance you may or may not realize you have.

+ Pray for an increase in resolution and determination. Choose one concrete thing you can do this week to apply it.  (e.g. pray 15 minutes each morning or evening, say something kind to your spouse when you want to say something critical, hug your child when you want to throw your hands up in exasperation, choose a daily Mass to attend and do what it takes to get there, go to Confession…)

This reflection is an excerpt from Take Time For Him: Remain in His Love available in ebook or paperback. Order a copy and don’t miss a single week!

 

Order the new set of guided meditations for this year’s Sunday Gospels!

 

© 2021 Angela M Jendro

Sunday Food For Thought: Attainable Unconditional Love

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6th Sunday of Easter:   Scripture Readings

Food For Thought

*excerpt from Take Time For Him: Remain In His Love

Meditation Reflection: John 14:23-29

“As the world gives” tends to leave a person bitter and disillusioned.  It begins with promises of security and pleasure but lacks real permanency or loyalty.  After a while we even struggle to relax during periods of calm, worrying that it won’t endure long.    Nothing seems to last, and this causes anxiety in good times and in bad.

[…] 

Christ however offers the peace every human soul longs for – permanent, deep, and healing.  Moreover, we do not have to chase after it like a greyhound that will never catch the rabbit.  Rather, Christ bestows His peace freely as a fruit of His unconditional love.  To receive this peace, we merely need to enter into a relationship of love with Him. Relationship with Christ is merciful and enduring.  Jesus doesn’t throw us away when we become difficult or even when we betray Him. He persists in pursuing us, binding our wounds, and transforming our hearts. His greatest pain, he revealed to St. Faustina, is our lack of trust in Him.  To Mother Teresa, He said, “I thirst”; meaning He thirsts for our souls and relationship with us. 

Relationships are risky – they require two people to both freely choose to love one another.  No matter how faithful, how loving, how sacrificial one partner is willing to be, if the other walks away the relationship ends.  Christ is the ultimate risk taker.  He loves us no matter what, even if that love is unrequited.  Moreover, the partner who walks away suffers the greatest loss because he or she closes himself off from the riches of the other partner’s love.  When we walk away from Christ, we close ourselves off from the love He longs to bestow upon us.

Jesus offers peace, love, and joy.  All we must do is live in a loving relationship with Christ.  To do this He says, we must follow His commands.  We live in a wounded world confused about authentic love.  Jesus teaches us through His commands and offers the perfect example for us to imitate. We can chase after the illusion of love or embrace the God who is love.  If we choose the latter, God will dwell within us and our joy will be complete.  It feels more risky because it’s harder to see at first. Ultimately however, it’s the soundest reality and truest love.

Consider:

+ Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” What do you allow to cause you anxiety and fear?  Surrender each thing to the Lord and entrust your concerns to Him.

Practical Application:

+ Examine your day each night or morning.  Thank God for His blessings.  Recognize when He came to your aid.  Identify when you failed to love Christ or your neighbor and ask for Jesus’ help to do better the next day.

This reflection is an excerpt from Take Time For Him: Remain in His Love available in ebook or paperback. Order a copy and don’t miss a single week!

 

Order the new set of guided meditations for this year’s Sunday Gospels!

 

© 2021 Angela M Jendro

Sunday Food For Thought: Secure Relationship

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4th Sunday of Easter:   Scripture Readings

Food For Thought

*excerpt from Take Time For Him: Remain In His Love

Meditation Reflection: John 10:27-30

We often hear in psychology, parenting advice, or therapy about the importance of attachment and bonding. The intimacy and security derived from these relationships provide critical ingredients for overall mental and emotional health. How might we develop this essential bond with Jesus, the source of our spiritual wellbeing?

First: what not to do.  Jesus described His relationship with His flock in response to stubborn hearted Jews who had pressed Him once again to declare clearly that He was the Christ. Jesus expressed anger at the question because He had demonstrated it so many times at this point, that their blindness was sharply willful and to repeat Himself would be pointless. They did not ask for an answer, they asked simply to argue with no real intent of listening.  You may have experienced this type of frustrating exchange with someone yourself. It’s one of those points at which you must just walk away.    

Jesus encounters the same blind argument today: “How can I be sure Jesus is God if He lived so long ago? What evidence is there that He even rose again from the dead or that the Bible is reliable? Maybe there were miracles back then, but not anymore.  How can I believe if Jesus doesn’t work a miracle in my time?”  Despite the myriad of evidence to the contrary all around us or at our fingertips, we need to choose to open our eyes.  In addition to the tomes of scholarly work in every discipline which has proven the reliability of the bible against every modern standard, or the witness of the apostles and early church that Jesus truly rose from the dead (why die a martyr for this if there is no resurrection?), Jesus is still present today and He works in our lives constantly if we would simply be open minded and open hearted enough to see.  He literally speaks to us through His Word in the Scriptures and His Church. He cares for our needs through His followers and even “the heavens are telling the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). Finally, in the quiet of our hearts His Holy Spirit speaks, gently guiding us. If we really want to see, if we really want to follow, we need only ask the Spirit to heal our sight that we may see all this abundance around us.

When a person truly encounters Christ, their hearts burn with love; their bond and attachment to Him welded solid. They enter the intimate security of being in His flock, from which no one can snatch them from Him (v.28). A person becomes Christ’s sheep through Baptism and permanently marked as Christ’s forever. In consequence, secure in His love, Jesus’ sheep listen to His voice and let Him lead that they may remain near Him and under His protection and compassionate care.

Easter celebrates Jesus’ conquering of evil, sin, and death.  He opened the gates of heaven, the gates of His fold, where He and the Father invite us to share in their love and receive it in our own hearts – the Holy Spirit.

 It takes humility to be a sheep or to be a child. Both require a poverty of spirit that accepts its own dependence.  Just as pride restricts and blinds us however, humility expands and frees us:

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:4

 What peace and joy to belong to Christ!  Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751) expressed it well in his spiritual classic Abandonment to Divine Providence:

“The truly faithful soul, well versed in all the secrets of God, lives in peace, and, instead of being frightened by what happens to it, is comforted, for it is quite, quite certain that God is guiding it.”[i]

[i] Jean-Pierre de Caussade. Abandonment to Divine Providence. Translated by  

          John Beevers. (Image Books: New York, 1975).

Consider:

+ To what extent to do you trust Christ, and to what extent to do you resist Him?

+ Do you have the humility to accept your dependence on His grace, to surrender your wisdom to His, to belong to Him instead of yourself?

+ Consider Christ’s strong love and attachment to you. Pause to reflect on His faithfulness and the security that flows from it.

+ Pray to Jesus with these words and reflect on this beautiful gift: “I belong to You”.

Practical Application:

+ Prayerfully pray and recall several times throughout the day: “I belong to You, Jesus”. Be at peace, secure in His love.

This reflection is an excerpt from Take Time For Him: Remain in His Love available in ebook or paperback. Order a copy and don’t miss a single week!

 

Order the new set of guided meditations for this year’s Sunday Gospels!

 

© 2021 Angela M Jendro

Sunday Food For Thought: Love and Mercy in Superabundance

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3rd Sunday of Easter:   Scripture Readings

Food For Thought

*excerpt from Take Time For Him: Remain In His Love

Meditation Reflection: John 21:1-19

I was recently presented with the question, “How can we know that the Christian religion is the true one as opposed to others?”  I responded, “ours is the only one whose founder has risen from the dead”! 

The miracle of Christ’s resurrection affirms the truth of His teachings and the divinity of His Person.  The apostles evangelized by bearing witness to this event, one that they experienced with their own eyes. Many struggle to trust in Jesus because we cannot see Him.  However, the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and numerous Epistles all testify that our faith does not rely on mere ideology but rather the physical resurrection of our Lord witnessed by reputable persons who all suffered for their testimony.  Not a single apostle recanted his position to avoid martyrdom.  All of them endured severe trials and difficulties with no monetary or physical reward.  They had no ulterior motive.  They did not say they “believed” Jesus had risen from the dead, but rather that they had all “seen” the risen Lord.

God knows we struggle to believe without seeing.  Despite our weak faith, He mercifully became incarnate that we might see Him when He redeemed us.  Moreover, He exceeded all expectations of the imagination by liberating us Himself rather than sending someone in his place.

We have all heard stories of backpackers or journalists who cross an enemy line and become imprisoned in a dangerous or violent country.  Imagine if you were that person, afraid in your cell as to what will become of you, praying that your president will learn of your state and send someone to save you.  You might hope for a diplomatic solution or even military special ops to heroically liberate you.  Consider your surprise however if the president himself were to show up in military gear and break you out of prison at his own personal risk.

Christ reveals the love of God that exceeds any possible expectation or imagination.  He condescends to our limitations even though He deserves better.  He liberates us at His own painful expense.  Moreover, He gives us a share in His resurrection and a chance at new life. 

The Christian life is a response to the love and mercy we have first received from our Lord.  Peter fed the Lord’s sheep because of his love and gratitude for His mercy.  Jesus did not throw away their friendship after Peter’s betrayal.  Instead, He gave Peter a second chance, an opportunity for contrition, forgiveness, and conversion.

Jesus gives each of us this same opportunity.  He comes to wherever we are, offering us something to eat and an outstretched hand of friendship.  He asks each of us the same question: “Do you love Me?”  If the answer is yes, then He insists we respond in kind by extending a hand up to others and accompanying them in their conversion.

Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation The Joy of Love addresses in a comprehensive way the joy of love in families – both the ideal as the gift God has given to us, and the painful “irregularities” that need careful healing.  The love of Christ and the call to feed His sheep begins in our families.   Jesus asks that if we love Him, we ought to give generously and tenderly to those placed by Him in our daily lives, beginning with our families and reaching out from there.

Consider:

+ It’s easy to be discouraged by our failures.  Consider the encounter of Peter with Christ.  What failure would weigh heavy on your heart if you faced the Lord?  How would you respond to His hand up and His offer of mercy?

+ Who in your life needs your mercy? How might you offer him or her a hand up?

+ Consider how Christ can be recognized by His superabundance. When the apostles pulled in such a large catch, John knew immediately it was the Lord. 

  • When has Christ surprised you by exceeding your expectations?
  • Ask for the gift of surrender and openness. Rather than giving Christ a list of tasks you would like Him to help accomplish, surrender the logistics to Him and do the tasks He sets before

Practical Application:

+  Offer mercy toward someone each day this week.

+  Offer Christ your work week. Give him one week of being in charge and trust Him to accomplish His will.  Just do the tasks He sets before you and let Him bring things together.

This reflection is an excerpt from Take Time For Him: Remain in His Love available in ebook or paperback. Order a copy and don’t miss a single week!

 

Order the new set of guided meditations for this year’s Sunday Gospels!

 

© 2021 Angela M Jendro

Sunday Food For Thought: Open Arms of the Father

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4th Sunday of Lent:   Scripture Readings

Food For Thought

*excerpt from Take Time For Him: Remain In His Love

Meditation Reflection: Luke 15:1-3,11-32

We often live in denial of ours sins and this can make it easy to imagine God as loving since we see ourselves entitled to His affections.  However, when our hearts are really struck by the realization of a failure, when shame settles in our stomach at our weakness or self-centeredness, we can mistakenly assume God views us as a failure too and wants nothing to do with us.  Jesus corrected this false view by describing God’s unconditional love in His Parable of the Prodigal Son, also known as the Parable of the Merciful Father.

Return of the Prodigal Son By Rembrandt

In this parable, the father had freely given his sons everything he could – life, love, nurturing, and even inheritance of his estate.  The first son responded with obedience, loyalty, and service.  The second son responded with ingratitude, an entitlement attitude, and complacency.  When he arrogantly wished his father dead and demanded his future inheritance, his father not only allowed him to leave but also gifted to him the undeserved future inheritance.  Mistaking license for freedom, the son lived foolishly for pleasure and self-gratification.  Eventually however his funds ran out and the difficult times that followed revealed the short-sightedness of his choices.  The glamour of evil wore off when he found himself desperate enough to take a job caring for pigs (considered unclean by the Jews) and even more desperate when he felt tempted by his insatiable hunger to ask for some of their slop but was denied. As he hit rock bottom, he finally realized the generosity and goodness of his father.

Some Christians take their faith for granted.  The spiritual gifts they had enjoyed from the sacraments, living in Christian fellowship, and possibly growing up in a Christian home seem less glamorous and more restrictive than worldliness.  At first, missing mass on Sunday to sleep in, put in an extra day at work, travel, or any number of things might not seem that big of a deal.  Next, spending time with worldly friends begins to outweigh Christian friends.  As seeming independence and success increase, a person may feel he or she no longer needs God.  They too mistake license for freedom and, taking their gifts from God, leave. 

Over time however they begin to experience life without grace.  The absence of God’s peace, the kindness of His followers, the richness of Scriptures wanes and they begin to hunger.  When hard times hit, without that spiritual connection to God, a person finds themselves starving and desperate.  Where can one turn for help?  A person who uses others, finds themselves being used by others.  Alcohol or drugs lose their ability to satiate and only make matters worse if not out of control.  All former numbing mechanisms – shopping, eating, gaming, gambling, travelling, even over-working cannot help but rather become enslaving.  

When one hits rock bottom, crawling back to God can seem unthinkable and disingenuous.  How could you ask God for help now when you so brazenly rejected Him earlier or slothfully let Him fall by the wayside.  Don’t you deserve to be miserable?  Maybe God is saying “I told you so”?

Jesus tells us otherwise.  Our pride imagines God reacting this way.  Jesus reveals that God is watching the horizon, waiting hopefully, and running to embrace us when we return.  The father in this parable doesn’t accept the demotion suggested by his son.  He embraces him, and raises him back to the dignity he had left behind; transforming him from servant of pigs to a son of the father. 

The older son’s jealousy reveals a hint of the same mistaken view as the younger son.  Although he made the loyal choice, he still considered his brother’s prodigal lifestyle as glamorous.  As a result, it appears to him that his brother was rewarded for leaving so disrespectfully and rewarded for returning so degraded.  However, the father and the younger son know the terrible poverty, anxiety, and shame his choices had brought upon him.  The older son, though working in the fields all those years, also enjoyed the peace and dignity of living as his father’s son.  He did not experience the “glamour” of debauchery nor did he have the impoverishment of it either. 

God loves us as a merciful father.  He pours out blessings in our lives even if we will eventually take them for granted.  A little time on our own however and we realize how much we rely on God’s supernatural aid and relationship.  He assures us that He is waiting anxiously for our return, running to meet us if we come back to Him and offering us the peace and protection of His home.

Consider:

+ Reflect on the father in the parable looking out at the horizon and seeing his son in the distance. Consider how God is waiting for you with the same longing.

+ Have you ever fallen for worldly deceptions? How did they turn out differently than what you first expected?

+ How does your dignity as God’s son or daughter outweigh and outshine the false beauty of the world?

Practical Application:

+ Read Psalm 51 each day this week.

+ Return to God in the sacrament of Confession.

This reflection is an excerpt from Take Time For Him: Remain in His Love available in ebook or paperback. Order a copy and don’t miss a single week!

 

Order the new set of guided meditations for this year’s Sunday Gospels!

 

© 2021 Angela M Jendro