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Showing posts with the label Prodigal Son

Homily for the 4th Sunday in Lent, March 27, 2022, Year C

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Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) There are three characters that in this parable Jesus is asking us to examine. Actually, Jesus is presenting them to us so that we might take a look at ourselves in them. How does each one of these characters mirror us, reflect back to us our attitudes and our condition relative to God? Parables invite us to enter into the actors and see ourselves in them. The first is the younger son. It’s important for us to pay attention to his fundamental condition in which we must see ourselves. The first thing to see is his radical departure from God our Father. When he asks for his inheritance, he isn’t just asking for a big sum of money. He is in effect saying to his father: “I’m treating you as if you’re dead. And I want to get now what I’m supposed to receive after you’re dead.” How many people do you know who live and act as if God is dead… as if God may as well be dead? Or how often have we had an “attitude”

Homily for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 15, 2019, Year C

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Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. Provincial Superior, La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for today’s readings ) Let’s make one thing perfectly clear. The celebration of the prodigal son’s return will last, in keeping with the local custom, a week or so. But when the party’s over that son will get his wish. He will be like a hired servant, maybe better off and enjoying certain privileges, but he will be forever dependent. He will have no inheritance when his father dies. His father makes that clear when he says to the elder son, “Everything I have is yours.” The elder son wasn’t concerned about questions of inheritance. He was angry because he never had such a party. This parable comes close to home for a lot of people. It dredges up images of old sibling rivalries. But that is not the point. This parable is more like the parable of the workers in the vineyard, where the question is: What’s fair? The elder brother clearly has resentments of

Homily for the 4th Sunday in Lent, March 31, 2019, Year C

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Fr. Charles Irvin Senior Priest Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’s readings ) There are three characters that in this parable Jesus is asking us to examine. Actually, Jesus is presenting them to us so that we might take a look at our selves in them. How does each one of these characters mirror us, reflect back to us our attitudes and our condition relative to God? Parables invite us to enter into the actors and see ourselves in them. The first is the younger son. It’s important for us to pay attention to his fundamental condition in which we must see ourselves. The first thing to see is his radical departure from God our Father. When he asks for his inheritance, he isn’t just asking for a big sum of money. He is in effect saying to his father: “I’m treating you as if you’re dead. And I want to get now what I’m supposed to receive after you’re dead.” How many people do you know who live and act as if God is dead… as if God may as well be dead? Or how often have we

Homily for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 11, 2016, Year C

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Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. Provincial Superior, La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut The Return of the Prodigal Son , Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1667/1670. ( Click here for today’s readings ) Let’s make one thing perfectly clear. The celebration of the prodigal son’s return will last, in keeping with the local custom, a week or so. But when the party’s over that son will get his wish. He will be like a hired servant, maybe better off and enjoying certain privileges, but he will be forever dependent. He will have no inheritance when his father dies. His father makes that clear when he says to the elder son, “Everything I have is yours.” The elder son wasn’t concerned about questions of inheritance. He was angry because he never had such a party. This parable comes close to home for a lot of people. It dredges up images of old sibling rivalries. But that is not the point. This parable is more like the parable of the workers in the vineyard, where th

Fr. Irvin's Homily for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 11, 2016, Year C

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Fr. Charles Irvin Senior Priest Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for today’s readings ) Is there a more familiar parable of Jesus than this one? Hardly! You know it well with the younger son treating his father as if he were dead and demanding his share of his father’s estate now instead of after his father dies. Then he wastes it all on “wine, women and song,” ending up in a pigpen (hell for a Jew) and then, when he was down and out, deciding to repent and return home. His father, who never forgot his son and never stopped loving him, runs out to him before the boy sets foot in his home. The boy begins a rehearsed speech of repentance but his father stops him, hugs and kisses him, and then throws a big party for him. Great story; happy ending What’s the point of the parable? What does Jesus want us to see? Let’s take a look at the elder son. Is he the focus? Look at who Jesus was talking to — the self-righteous, the moralizing Pharisees who despised Him for hanging out wit