[AI translation] This old earth is no man's land, there is One Who cares for it, Who rules over it, There is a loving Father in heaven. The story we are about to read brings us very happy news of this dear Father!It is already very consoling to know that this Earth, however muddy, dirty, and bloodstained, does not wander orphaned and abandoned in the great universe, but has a Father to Whom it belongs. Yes, this Earth, the buds and trees, stones and animals that grow on it, the puddles of water that litter the roads and the creatures that swarm in it, have a Father in heaven! This lost wanderer, stumbling along the muddy and often bloody roads of the earth, has a Father in heaven! This is the welcome message of this story of a man who had two sons. With Odysseus, the great wandering wanderer of the Old World, Homer once said: There is nothing sweeter in the world than a home with loving parents! If this is true even in earthly terms, for it is, how much more true it is in the context of the biblical story we are reading: 'There is nothing more precious in the world than that we humans have a Heavenly Father in heaven, a Heavenly Father in Heaven! There is nothing greater in the world than to be able to say with the heart of a child, "Our Father, who art in heaven" (Matthew 6:9).
But unfortunately, this story is not only about the good news that we have a Father in heaven, but also about the fatal, great trouble in the relationship between the Father in heaven and man on earth. Behold, there are two sons, and the heart of the father cannot rejoice in either of them. The youngest is claiming an inheritance he has no right to, and squandering in a far-off land what he has gathered with the sweat of his own brow. How can a man be so foolish as to want to get away from the presence of the Lord God, the Father, who only wants what is good for him? How can it be that we cannot feel truly at home and at ease in the presence of our Father, who has so much love and good will for us always? And why is it that we are always more attracted to the force that is visibly leading us into danger? What mysterious law of gravity is it that always pulls us downwards more strongly than upwards? Behold, the pair of swallows almost have to force their young out of the nest when it is time to fly! And man can hardly wait for the moment when he can untie the wheel from the Lord God!
Indeed, our Heidelberg Catechism does not overstate the case when it states that we humans are naturally inclined to hate God and our neighbours (cf. HK Question and Answer 5)! Yes, this is what the father in the parable must have experienced. This younger son certainly does not love his father. It is not his words but his attitude that reveals how this is so. The older son stays at home and works honestly, but his behaviour shows that he does not do his work at home like the son who is attached to his father, but like a servant who is always grumbling and working for wages. Thus in neither of his sons, therefore, does the father find much pleasure: in the one, because of wild intemperance; in the other, because of servile unkindness. It is impossible to say which has made the mother's heart more bitter: the son who has wandered away or the son who has stayed at home? Did we not say before, that the whole conduct of this earth, of this humanity, does not show again and again, as if it had no need, or even no Father in heaven?
But in fact it is not the two sons but the mother who is the protagonist of this story. Let's take a closer look at her! What impression does this father make on us? Does he not say that he is suffering a lot because of his two sons? Yes, this is a parable of a father suffering for his children! Someone might say, "But why did you give out the inheritance, I would not have done it! But this father gave it away, without a word, without any family scene. He did not strike the table, and he did not say: But, my son, I am the master here! We would have liked this father to have taken a harder line with his son. It almost looks as if he is frightened, or ill, or showing signs of old age! And yet this father is neither frightened, nor ill, nor senile, but is suffering for his sons! He suffers for the disobedience and unlovingness of his sons.
And now we can see into the heart of our Heavenly Father! We often wish that God would act more firmly, of course, especially when it comes to acting against others. We would like God to rule this troubled world so firmly and show us who is Lord of the house by force! But our Father is suffering in heaven! God's greatest act on earth is to suffer, to bear, to bear, to passion. No son of man can imagine how much suffering there is in heaven because of the earth. What sorrow is it to the heart of the Father of Mothers to have lost sons and lost daughters wandering the muddy and bloody paths of the earth! Many times desperate people say that God does not care for the world, but only watches the earth from afar. Well, it is not so, for what earthly parents may suffer at all for their prodigal, unfortunate child, what we call suffering at all, is not even to be compared, even when magnified to infinity, with what the Heavenly Mother bears for her lost children.
The mother in the parable goes before both her sons. He runs to the younger son, falls on his neck and kisses him as if he, the father, was to blame, and is happy that this debauched beggar has returned with empty pockets. And he goes after the eldest, and begs him to come and rejoice too! She, the mother who could compel and command, pleads and cries. Do you recognize in this parable our Heavenly Father, the Lord who comes to us with outstretched arms, who makes Himself available, who hastens to meet us, who comes to earth after us, as He showed Himself in the events of Christmas, in the humiliation of Good Friday, in the Holy Spirit descending on Pentecost. Yes, such is our Father in heaven, Who spares no sacrifice when it comes to saving what is lost. Yes, this world has a Father! Yes, heaven has come after earth, and in a way so concrete, so bloody real, as can be seen and felt in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
And if the instinct to escape from the nearness of God is strong in man, the Father's love of home is even stronger! Mysterious as man's will to his own destruction is, even more wonderful is the Father's will to seek and keep what is lost. And even if it is the nature of man to hate God and his neighbour, it remains the nature of God to love man and the whole world with a fatherly heart! Hard as the resistance of the sons may be, there is no force in the world harder, tougher, and more irresistible than the saving purpose, the compassionate love of the Father, which is reflected in these words:
"And while he was yet afar off, his Father saw him, and his heart was moved, and he ran and fell on his neck and kissed him." (Luke 15:20) Such is the Father's activity when it comes to the love of a lost soul!
I heard a little story about a mother who suffered a lot because of her debauched daughter. For many years she called and waited for her home, but in vain. One day, the mother, who was crying a lot, had a photo taken of herself and signed it: My daughter, I still love you! She posted the photo in the nightclubs where her daughter used to dance. The fallen girl once saw the photo and the caption underneath. The crucified Christ is the most faithful picture of our Heavenly Father suffering for us, with this caption: 'You, soul, who see this picture, I still love you! In last week's great evangelization in Budapest, God held this image up before many souls. Perhaps you too have seen it more clearly now than at other times, perhaps it is more deeply engraved in your soul than at other times. Perhaps there are those here who feel that the message is now addressed to them, that someone has come for them personally, after them, from above, from the house of the Father, "to seek and to save that which was lost." (Luke 19:10).
In the relentless hustle and bustle of this life today, in its restless drudgery, oh, but there are many who do not even have time to realize what one young man expressed in this way: 'I am lost, and I do not know where. I want to find myself again, and I don't know how! Well then, you can find yourself, you can find all the joy and happiness you have ever longed for in your wildest dreams! When you see the picture of the suffering Heavenly Mother, Jesus on the cross, and believe what He wrote on it, He still loves you! So come home, the door is open, our Father is waiting!
The great, merry, happy feast, of which the end of the story is told, will be after this, and then it will begin over there. But the wedding people are already gathering in the courtyard of that eternal home, the church. Here we all welcome each other, prodigal sons and daughters returning home, and from here we shall enter the parental abode, radiant with heavenly glory. Thanks to the great love of our Heavenly Father, more and more of us are already in this earthly courtyard of the heavenly home, the Church. Your place is here too, in the faithful community of this Church! Do not be left out, for you will be lost again in this strange, dark, big world! There are prodigal sons and fraternal hearts like yours, who come stumbling and stumbling, waiting for you here! Do not fear, do not hesitate, do not delay! Come home!
Amen.
Date: 11 April 1948.
Lesson
Lk 15,11-32