Homily

This Sunday is called Laetare Sunday (Be Glad Sunday), from the first word of the Liturgy. The Church invites us to interrupt the severity of the Lenten Season. The colour purple, a colour that marks a time of penitence, gives way to rose, a sign of the joy that is given to our hearts today as a foretaste of the joy of Easter. The serenity that we find in this liturgy does not come from us; it is a gift from on-high. It does not flow from our honesty or any of our other qualities, but it exists because there is someone who welcomes us as we are, without even knowing us beforehand.
The Gospel of Luke that is proclaimed today begins by noting that "Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’" The evangelist seems to be pleased to describe this strange audience that is gathering around Jesus. For the Pharisees, however, it is a sign of scandal because sharing a table with sinners meant participating in their impurity. Consequently, their accusation against Jesus was far from insignificant. This scene, which is a scandal for conventional thinkers, is Gospel for us, "good news." It is truly joyful news that Jesus spends time with sinners. What is the Sunday liturgy if not a banquet shared by Jesus and us sinners? Does he not converse with us? Does he not give us his bread to eat and his cup to drink? Yes, in every Sunday liturgy, we make these three verses of the Gospel of Luke real. Let us thank the Lord for this great and certainly unmerited gift! Only those who feel they "are all right" are unable to understand this gospel passage and are incapable of taking pleasure in the joy that flows from it. Only those who do not need to be welcomed, forgiven, and embraced think like the Pharisees and scribes. But at first sight, their serious accusation seems more than reasonable.
How does Jesus defend himself? Not by talking about himself, but about the Father. He tells the well-known parable of the "prodigal son" (it would be better to call it the parable of the "merciful father"). It is perhaps one of the most disconcerting passages in the Gospel. It opens with the youngest son asking his father for his share in the inheritance. Once he gets it, he leaves home. His life, which initially is dazzling and satisfying, is soon brought low by the violence of a famine and the abandonment of his friends. The young man is left alone and is forced to watch pigs as his job. It is the only way he can survive. But even the pigs are better off than he is, as "he would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything" (v. 16), the evangelist notes with sadness.
The son’s life is broken, just as his feelings are broken. How bitter it is for him to remember the time when he lived in his father’s house! But it is precisely the bitterness of the life into which he had fallen that makes him come to himself. "How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’" The young man gets up from his sad situation and sets off towards home. His father is waiting for him. The evangelist suggests watching him. We can imagine him on the terrace of his house, looking off into the distance, towards the horizon, hoping to see his son come back. When the son is "still far off," the father sees him and, "filled with compassion, he ran and put is arms around him and kissed him." He still does not know why his son is returning, nor does he know what he will say to him, but that is not important. What counts is that he is coming back. He does not let him say anything, but throws his arms around him. The son’s heart melts, as does his tongue. He mutters a few words. It seems as if the father does not even hear him, and after dressing him in new robes and putting sandals on his feet and a ring on his finger, he orders his servants to immediately prepare a great feast. Everything happens in a very short time.
The older brother comes back from the fields. We could say he spends all his time at work or at home. As soon as he learns the reason for the feast, he becomes furious and refuses to go inside. Once again it is the father who comes out. He goes to meet his son and begs him to understand the beauty of what has happened and invites him to come inside to celebrate. But the son not only does not enter, he also has harsh words for his father. "‘For all these years, I have been working like a slave for you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’" The father responds with tenderness, "You are always with me," and he adds, firmly, "but we had to celebrate." He has understood that this son is also distant, even though he lives at home. Even though he is the older son, he does not understand his father’s love or his younger brother’s need for love and forgiveness. The father is firm with him: he will not let him stay closed in the sadness of his selfishness. This firmness is the expression of a love as great as the love he had shown for the younger son.
In a society that is so stingy in welcoming the weak and so reluctant to forgive, the words we have heard are truly Gospel, truly good news. We all need a father like the one the Gospel shows us, and we all need a house like this one, where we are not only welcomed, but embraced with joy.