Fr. Jeff’s Weekly Homily

March 17, 2007
4th Sunday of Lent, 2007

READING 1: Joshua 5:5-9a
No longer was there manna for the Israelites, who that year ate of the yield of the land of Canaan.

Psalm 34
Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

READING 2: 2 Corinthians 5:17-21
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

GOSPEL: Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32
Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So to them Jesus addressed this parable: “A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, ‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’ So the father divided the property between them. After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation. When he had freely spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he found himself in dire need. So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens who sent him to his farm to tend the swine. And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any. Coming to his senses he thought, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food to eat, but here am I, dying from hunger. I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”’ So he got up and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son.’ But his father ordered his servants, ‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.’ Then the celebration began. Now the older son had been out in the field and, on his way back, as he neared the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean. The servant said to him, ‘Your brother has returned and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ He became angry,
and when he refused to enter the house, his father came out and pleaded with him. He said to his father in reply, ‘Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’ He said to him, ‘My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must Celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’”

What a glorious weekend this is! Our Gator gymnastics team is number 1 in the nation and the SEC baseball season is starting and our number 1 seed Gator basketball team won it’s first test 112-69 Friday and plays today (Sunday) at 2:15. And, of course, Happy St. Patrick’s Day (weekend)! We’ll be blessing our newly donated and installed mosaic of St. Patrick by our confessional chapel at the end of Mass.

…Almost everything in life has something to do with motivation.

We know what motivated the wayward son to return? What do you think motivated Jesus to tell this story? In Luke’s Gospel, this story happens on his last journey to Jerusalem . By now, I think Jesus had a good sense of our reality and his own reality. The great Bible teachers suggest that the Tax collectors and sinners were comforted by the story of the younger son and the story of the older son was for the Pharisees and the Temple leaders. But weren’t the Pharisees and Temple leaders also sinners? Couldn’t the younger brother also be for them?

Do you think his human experience would have been enough for him to know that human beings don’t change much? Do you think the fully human Jesus of Nazareth might have been looking at us as his younger brothers and sisters? Could he have seen that we all come and go from our Father’s house; often squandering our Father’s gifts, our talents, our freedom, our prosperity, our time on this earth and so much more, including our inheritance? Surely he knew what every confessor knows, that there are no new sins; sins just repeat and repeat in a boring, depleting, disappointing circuitous spiral. How did he feel about knowing that there would be no party at the end of his journey but he would be striped and tortured and killed after doing his Father’s will at every turn? Did Jesus have a prayerful encounter with the Father similar to the conversation of the father and older brother in the story?

We know how the Jesus story played out. Ultimately, without sin, he was nailed to a cross and totally liberated of any resentment, Jesus said through the pain, “Father, forgive them.” What motivated him to go from resentful older brother to that benevolence? I think this was Jesus’ motivation. He knows what it feels like and he invites us to travel with him in our own day. How do we move from resentment to benevolence? We’ve been hurt, we’ve done the right thing and been betrayed, we have given our hearts to another and been rejected. I think St. Paul was inspired by a thought process similar to the one Jesus may be asking us to take in these last days before Calvary . Many brides and groom choose this reading for their weddings but only discover how tough it is when they are married. It is from St. Paul ’s first letter to the Corinthians:

If I speak with human tongues and angelic as well, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophesy and, with all knowledge, comprehend all mysteries, if I have faith to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give everything I have to feed the poor and hand over my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. Love is not jealous, it does not put on airs, it is not snobbish. Love is never rude, it is not self seeking, it is not prone to anger; neither does it brood over injuries. Love does not rejoice in what is wrong but rejoices with the truth. There is no limit to love’s forbearance, its trust, its hope, its power to endure. Love never fails.

…In the end there are three things that last: faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:1b-8a,13

The Good News in this journey toward Calvary is that when we choose to love our way through life’s battles, we can expect the victory!

Fr. Jeff McGowan
Queen of Peace Catholic Community
Gainesville, Florida