I used to wonder which son I identified with in the Prodigal Son story. Now I understand the father’s love.

A Reflection for Saturday of the Second Week of Lent

Find today’s readings here.

When I was a child, I found myself wondering which of these sons I identified with when I heard this familiar parable. I knew the responsible, respectable son was doing all the right things and assuming the obligations expected of him, but that wayward prodigal, well, he seemed to be having the most fun and in the end faced no comeuppance for it. (Well, aside from his own shame and ruin and a little wallowing with pigs.) Not a bad deal.

It is not hard to sympathize with the annoyance and frustration of the elder son. He played by the rules, endured a younger brother who squandered his inheritance and the family’s wealth. What was his reward? A spectacle of joy and mercy orchestrated by a clearly mentally diminished old man.

Now older and perhaps a little wiser, I see and feel this parable from a completely different perspective. With four children of my own, I no longer identify so much with either brother—the frustrated elder, the shamed younger yearning for forgiveness—but that elderly father stops me short.

How well I feel his joy now, how well I understand that sprint to embrace the returning child, even as sympathy lingers for the outraged son who never had his fattened-calf moment despite all his good-doing, forced to watch this sibling celebrated despite all his wrong-doing. But I understand the father now, with my heart as close as it can possibly reach to the infinite mercy of God the Father, a depth of generosity and compassion beyond all human understanding—almost.

Dear children, I know this father’s love. There are moments I feel its divine boundlessness. I am a grump and a fossil, you are probably aware, but you should know, there is nothing you can do to separate me from thee, to diminish my love and hope for you. There is nothing that would prevent my loving embrace.

There is no end to my love for you; there is no disappointment that it could not bear, no deed that could dissolve what I feel for you.

Like the father in Jesus’ parable, indeed I am profoundly grateful for the dependable, dutiful child—“you are here with me always; everything I have is yours”—but what great joy after enduring the ache of a lost child to find that child returned safely to you.

This father’s love is unceasing; its resources and reach are immeasurable. I offer everything I have for you.

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