12/26/2023 0 Comments Televisor break looseThis part of the story receives a lot of press and is exactly why the older brother grinds his teeth-he did all the right things, staying home and obeying his father. This son enters into his father mercy with filial trust. The father rejoices that his “dead” son is alive and home. Unexpectedly, the father fully restores his son’s status, and the celebration begins. Then “all heaven breaks loose.” The father violates the social norms of his day by running out to meet his sinful son. Finding himself broke and competing with pigs for food, he “comes to his senses” and decides to return home as a hired hand. The short version: a father has two sons, and “all hell breaks loose” when the younger one insults the father by wishing him dead, collecting his part of the inheritance and squandering it on sin. We all know this story, but go and read it again (see Luke15:11-32). The Prodigal Son story illustrates these two approaches. The other is as a son, seeing God as our Abba, our Papa, who makes a covenant relationship with us-filial fear, understanding that nothing, not even sin, can stop God from loving us. One is as a slave, seeing God as a master to obey, fearing punishment-servile fear. John Paul II, we can “fear the Lord” in two contrasting ways. ![]() The Prodigal Son story asks and answers an essential question for men: “How do you approach God?” The Psalmist answers, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps. ![]() I want to focus on the prodigal’s brother. Journeying through this Year of Mercy, focusing on the motto, “Merciful like the Father,” I think the Prodigal Son story is a “Grand Canyon” to be experienced from several vantage points! The Catechism encapsulates it this way, “Only the heart of Christ who knows the depths of his Father’s love could reveal to us the abyss of his mercy in so simple and beautiful a way” (1439). I have hiked along the rim and taken different trails into the canyon I have flown over it in a plane! Each perspective reveals something different, but all inspire awe! This natural wonder must be experienced from different vantage points to be fully appreciated. ![]() The immensity and beauty of the Grand Canyon is an inexhaustible mystery for me.
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