For long, long years, after the ever-present threat of
beatings at their place of work, the Israelite slaves found that the short nights
at home with the provided ration of Egyptian food had been the sole, and most
deeply consoling opportunity, for them to experience human peace and bodily rest.
That partial satisfaction of their hunger together with a few snatched hours of
sleep and family communion was the only joy to which they could aspire. Long years of such slavery meant that those
Israelite slaves found the thought of freedom decidedly un-attractive if it
involved long struggle with as yet unknown dangers, and loss of regular food, to
attain it. Consequently, during the
trials of their desert journey they were, at times, much tempted to return to captivity
once again for its regular provision of life’s basic necessities. Only after years of guiding,
supporting, strengthening, by God on their way through the desert, did the
Israelites learn to recognize their new-found freedom and appreciate their
own personal human dignity; and only at the very end of that long journey
to the Promised Land, was the Lord able to say to Joshua, those most beautiful
words:
Today I have removed the reproach
of Egypt from you.
In our second reading St. Paul spoke of himself as an ’ambassador
for Christ, imploring us to be
reconciled to God’. Now, the
elder son in the Gospel parable had a somewhat similar office of reconciliation
to fulfil with regard to his younger brother remaining in the family, but he, obviously,
had been unable to prevent his younger brother claiming the money his father
had planned to give him later on, in lustful dash for immediate pleasure in a
distant country where – unknown -- he could
feel free from notice and responsibility.
The elder brother could only accept his brother’s return
out of reverence for his father … but he seems to have had difficulty in
accepting his father’s extreme joy at his younger son’s return home. Nevertheless,
the old man remembered his words to his first-born -- ALL THAT I HAVE IS YOURS –
so that, although the elder brother could not appreciate or share in, his
father’s overflow of paternal emotion, he
ought – mindful of his father’s firm
remembrance, and his own resultant security -- to have made himself accept his
brother’s return with respect because of the almost inexpressible joy it gave
his father.
The elder brother in Jesus’ parable seems, indeed, to have
given good example to his younger brother in so far as he was always obedient
and respectful to their father; and, In that respect, he is something of a model for senior Catholics
today who obey the commandments of God and Mother Church consistently enough,
but who can never stir-up enough zeal to give personal witness to Jesus and the heavenly
Father, by showing and sharing their joy and delight, their peace and
hope, in the Faith, with others,.
Many young people
find such passionless obedience given, they think, more out of fear than
love, unattractive; and being unable to fathom the difference between servile
fear and the reverential fear, and filial love, of God, they compound
their own lack of wisdom by totally ignoring what they cannot easily understand
Failure to delight
in the Lord is usually a fault in the believer; don’t we have age-old popular
songs telling us to ‘Count your blessings one by one’? In fact, it can be truthfully said that, no ‘good’
can be suitably appreciated apart from the human instinctive practice of
recalling, reviewing, and rejoicing over what has been gained or granted. And the Psalmist (105:3-5) recalls this
human, psychological, fact when he so urgently tells :
Let
the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord!
Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face evermore! Remember His marvellous works which
He has done.
People of God, I
suggest that, on this ‘Laetare Sunday’, you dedicate yourselves to spiritual rejoicing,
By that I mean, that you should try, first of all, to look honestly at yourselves
and recognize, remember, and delight in, the many blessings you have
received over the years, and even begin to look to the promises given us
concerning our future in Jesus.
Finally, may we – as
the Psalmist said -- be God-graced so as to transfigure our old, private
and hidden, obedience, into public confession of, and praise for, God’s
great goodness, since:
Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come!
