Homily for the 4th Sunday
of Lent, 2022
There is a
line in our Gospel today that I would like to preach on, and it is this: “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.”
The main
problem with the older son is his blindness to all the blessings that have come
to him precisely because of his Father. The oldest son has food at every meal thanks
to his father, he has wealth built up by his father, he has servants because of
his father, and on and on…and yet he sees none of these blessings but only what
he lacks.
And we also
tend to be blind to the gifts given us by our Heavenly Father. Our food, our shelter, our heat and air
conditioning, medicine, water, electricity, our clothing, our schooling…we have
so many blessings from our Heavenly Father…and yet do we thank Him… or do we complain
about what our Heavenly Father is NOT doing for us?
Paragraph
1360 of the Catechism instructs us that every Mass is “a sacrifice of
thanksgiving to the Father, a blessing by which the Church expresses
her gratitude to God for all his benefits”.
Indeed the very word “Eucharist” means “Thanksgiving”…so all of us who are
here are participating in the best way possible to thank our Heavenly Father
for all that He has done for us.
Let us ask
God that we might have our eyes opened to all the blessings He is freely pouring
out on us, including our sufferings. Let
us not be blind to all the good things our Heavenly Father is doing in our
life, but instead let us recommit to thanking God unceasingly!
Lord Jesus
Christ, help us to be freed from the blindness of the older son in your parable
of the prodigal son. May we see all
of the blessings you are pouring out on us, and be grateful for all of
them. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment