Fr. Mark Baron, MIC: This is a foundational gospel in the 4 gospels. In all the gospels, this is a foundational gospel. It's from the gospel of Luke. Right? And the gospel of Luke is known as the gospel of mercy.
And actually, the pope, popes Pope Benedict and pope John Paul the second referred to mercy as the heart of the gospel. I was reading just recently from Saint John Paul the second. I was reading his encyclical, Divis et misericordia, which involves the notion of rich and mercy. And in that encyclical, pope John Paul the second wrote it with the context that man cannot know himself without knowing Jesus, that Jesus reveals the truth about ourselves to us. And he went on to say how, how Jesus though came to reveal the father to us.
And so really, yes, Jesus we Jesus reveals the truth of us of what it means to be a human being, but Jesus in coming to reveal the father to us points us to the Father. So that it's really in and through the Father that we come to understand the truth of who we are. That if we are going to come to know Christ better so we can know ourselves, we have to know the Father. And so part of the encyclical or the whole of the encyclical is understanding how Jesus reveals the father who is rich in mercy. And this is why through the encyclical, we get this incredible reflection on the prodigal son, this gospel passage.
And so I just wanna kinda reflect to you a little bit of what John Paul the second wrote, some of the highlights of this reflection because it's probably the best reflection on the prodigal son that you'll you'll find, I think. But it's kind of simple, actually, and he divides his reflection up reflection up into 2, commentaries, if you will. The first reflection deals with the attitude of the son towards what he has done, and the second one deals with the attitude of the father towards what the son has done. So let's start with the first. Let's start with the son.
And he's he he highlights how the son basically has a certain attitude towards material things. And the son's attitude is basically that my value is based on my possessions, which makes sense because that's why he asked his father for his estate, for his inheritance. He's all about, you know, his value is based on his possessions. His value is based on, like, the money he has and the kind of like life of pleasure and partying probably that he could do. That that's how he saw himself.
At that time, he didn't see himself, the dignity his dignity based on the fact that he was a son. And and so anyway, he goes out and he blows his inheritance and ends up working for someone, you know, as a servant where he's just feeding on the pods on which the swine are fed. He's quasi homeless. He's in a dire state, it even says. And his situation, as he begins to recognize, wow, I'm in a bad place.
I kinda need to go back. And he's thinking like, well, that my father would he's like, my father he starts to have the pope notes that that the son starts to have a sense of his dignity as as son, when he kinda recognizes, well, I can't go back to my father's house and live as I normally did because I offended my father. You know, he said, but maybe my father will take me back and I can just kind of work as a hired servant in his house, you know. And so that's kind of how the pope presents the attitude of the son. The son is recognizing that he screwed up.
He's recognizing he's offended his father, but maybe I can at least just kinda live on a lower level than where I used to live. And so now he speaks about the father and his internal attitude of mercy, and he notes how the father never stops seeing the son as his son because he is his son. And those of you who have children can probably appreciate that. You never stop seeing your children as your children, I assume. Give me raise your hand.
Is that true? You never stop seeing your children as your children, no matter what they've done. They're always your daughters, your daughter or your son or sons. They are always that way. And you always and you are faithful to that no matter what they've done.
And this is what the pope brings out in regards to the and the the father in this parable is faithful to his fatherhood towards his son. And so he sees that his son, yes, has made a mistake, but the son but the father is recognizing the dignity of his son, and he values the humanity of his son, the dignity of his son as his son over anything. And so when the son comes back and kind of goes through his, you know, kind of apology, if you will. The father is delighted. And actually, John Paul the second, he says that, the fidelity of the father towards the son is expressed in his immediate readiness to welcome him, but especially then through the joy and merrymaking that he showed his lost son.
And he says the cause of the father's joy is the father being aware that a fundamental good has been saved, the good of his son's humanity. Although the son squandered the money, the humanity is saved. And so then it's this then this is really where it gets pretty awesome, I think, where the pope speaks about mercy. And granted, the word mercy is never mentioned in this gospel, is it? You never hear the word mercy in the prodigal son, but yet, it's on full display.
And the pope notes that, and he goes on and he says he says, the father's fidelity to himself is totally concentrate concentrated concentrated, excuse me, upon the humanity of the lost son, upon his dignity. And he says, the love that springs from the very essence of his fatherhood obliges the father to be concerned about his son's dignity. He says this concern is the measure of his love. And he says mercy, as Jesus presented it in this parable without even saying the word mercy, has the interior form of agape love. Right?
Agape love is that love that goes out and wants to give itself. And he says mercy is a type of agape love that is able to reach down to every prodigal son, to every human misery, and above all, to every form of moral misery that is to sin. And when this happens, the person who is the object of mercy does not feel humiliated, but rather found again and restored to value because that's what the father does in this parable. He restores the prodigal son to to to his original place. You are my son.
You're not my servant. You're not my slave. You're my son. I'm going to treat you as my son. And I'm restoring you as my son in my household.
That's in effect what he's doing. And so this is what the Holy Father points out as the key here, in this gospel where mercy is presented. This notion where mercy doesn't involve humiliation. Because remember, I don't know, when I was growing up, you play the game mercy, and you're kind of like trying to, like, see who can, you know, bend back a person's hands to the point of pain. So what?
You cry out mercy? It's like you get to a place of submission. That's not God's mercy. God's mercy is something that really anticipates our woundedness, anticipates our sinfulness, anticipates our neediness, our misery, and he comes to us. That's what the image of mercy is about.
Jesus walking out towards us, coming to us, seeking us out, seeking out those who are lost, always trying to reach out with these rays. You know, those rays are kind of like the arms of the father, God the father, like the arms of God the father reaching through Jesus who came to reveal the father to us and trying to gather us back. That's kind of what's being presented here. And so anyway, it, it it helps us to appreciate just the truth of not only who Jesus is, but because Jesus came to reveal the father to us. It helps us to understand God, the father.
And now when we speak about God, the father, though, we have to understand, we have to do this. This is very important is that we have to understand the fatherhood of God and or or understanding the fatherhood of God, we have to understand it purified of all bodily notions. Like, I love that image of the trinity up there. Truly, I love it. But God does not have the father does not have a beard.
He's not an old man. Yeah. And and this is important. And the re part of the reason why it's important is because a lot of people have a hard time relating to the fatherhood of God because some people have had bad experiences of their own father. And so that can be a block.
But probably the best way to understand well, we have to understand God in himself as he got his pure spirit. So he doesn't have a body. All right. From all eternity, you know, well, Jesus ascended in his body, so there's a glorified body up there. But the point is the first person of the Trinity does not have a body.
He is he's pure spirit and and the word that, how they refer to, like, the the patristics refer to him, like, to to help to describe him is like source or the the they call him the originary plenitude. Because remember, everything comes from the Father. The Father communicates the fullness of His divinity to the Son, right, to the work to to to the second person, the Trinity. The love between the 2, it's it aspires the Holy Spirit. But but the important thing is, is that every good and perfect gift in the Trinity comes from the Father.
He communicates himself perfectly through all eternity and then everything, every good gift that comes to us is from the Father. The father is, you know, he's rich in mercy, And so that, you know, that comes to us through the letter of Saint Paul and to the Ephesians. That's who he is. I wanna end by by reflecting on this. I, I do a, on Instagram, I'm you know, as I've gotten up here in Stockbridge and started getting into my role as the director of the Marian Helpers Center, I got into, like, Instagram.
So I don't even have an Instagram account, but but, somebody, one of the workers over there, Caitlin, got me in to do an Instagram one day, like, she said, will you father father Mark, will you just kind of, you know, lead the chaplain on Instagram one day, Instagram live? I'm like, sure. Why not? So I did it. I'm like, oh, this is kind of cool.
Let's do it again. And then I just got the inspiration to do a 54 day Divine Mercy Chaplet Novena. Beginning on actual Wednesday, it's going to end on Divine Mercy Sunday. And so we do it. So, you know, 3 o'clock today, you got nothing going on, tune in.
Instagram live, the divine mercy, that's where we're at. And there's we have we always have a recording of it. So anyway, sometimes I invite people on to pray with us. Like last week, last Saturday, I had brother Elliot on, which is awesome. And then yesterday, I had somebody named Jim Wahlberg on to pray with us.
And Jim Wahlberg has this incredible conversion story and he was telling me, after we prayed the chapel, he told it, he shared it. And I had heard some of it before, but he was going through it, and he's going through how, you know, he was homeless, like, by the age of 12, living on the streets, you know, from even from a family of 9 kids and never really connected with his parents, never was really connecting with God, was not loving himself really at all, just in a bad place, ended up in jail when he was 9 17, got out of jail, and then he did something stupid and went back to jail. And then finally, he was befriended by a priest, the priest who came to to the jail. And then through that, working with the then the priest got him working in this in, you know, the that ministry there in jail. And then he met Mother Teresa.
You know, he heard and then he said, Mother Teresa basically just said those simple words just said those simple words that God loves you. He's like, I had never heard that in my life. He said, like, I asked him, I said, well, what was your image of God growing up? He's like, it's this. You know, God is God's gonna get you, you know.
And so so all, you know, so he was cut off from love, you know, during his whole life. You know, he didn't he wasn't experienced love from his parents, didn't experience love from God or even religious figures until that priest and then Mother Teresa. And so, long story short, he ended up having a conversion and then he ended up getting confirmed in jail. He says his mom came because he talked about his mom, and it was obviously a rough road with his mom for a long time. And he said until his confirmation.
And his mom came, to his confirmation. And she was so joy filled. And it's like, he he said, from that time on, my relationship with my mom was changed because, like, she was taking joy in me and and and she she but but but it was it was like this product not not the it was like the prodigal son moment, but not with the father with his biological father, but with his biological with with his mom. And I said that to him, like, man, I said, I just been reading about this. It's like your your mom was expressing the joy that the father did in the prodigal son parable.
And he's like, yeah, that's it. And and and and she, he said, she would always refer back to that moment as like the foundational moment of their relationship. Amazing. And but anyway, this is really what we're talking about here today is just conversion. This this is what mercy does.
Mercy, you know, this is why mercy, we need mercy so bad in this world because mercy is that love of God that bends down to our misery, our neediness, you know, and just helps to bring good out of whatever situation we're in. You know, and and let me just let me finish with this quote. I promise this is it. Right? But he says the pope says, the true and proper meaning of mercy does not consist in just looking at moral, physical, or material evil, like, too bad.
You're suffering. Too bad. No. He says mercy is truly and properly manifested when it goes out and seeks to restore to value, promotes, and draws good from all the forms of evil existing in the world and in man. That's that's what God's about.
And you know what that means? Is that we don't have to be perfect to receive the mercy of God. As a matter of fact, this definition of mercy says God is motivated by our misery. God is motivated to come to our misery, to our woundedness, to our brokenness. He wants to enter into those places where we give him the Heisman.
Right. This is what this is what we do to God. You know, stay over there, God. You know, we have our own, you know, we we erect like walls around certain wounded air parts of our heart, and we try to live out of them. You know, we try to live out of those walls or with those walls around our heart.
But Jesus came to earth because he knew we were a hot mess or the word became flesh, Jesus. God sent his son into the world because he knew we were a hot mess. He knew he knows. And he's like, dude, come on, be real. You know, it's like, I know what's going on inside there.
I know how you've been hurt. I know what you've done. Let me in. You know, this is where Jesus stands at the door and knock. Hello?
Anybody in there? I was like, yeah, Jesus. You can come in, but you can't go there. He's like, nope. That's where I want to go.
So anyway, this is just the beauty of talking about divine mercy. This is the divine mercy is the is the greatest attribute of Jesus of God towards us, and it's that attribute that we need so bad. Every one of us, every one of us. And as we learn to receive mercy in our life, then that mercy should help to transform us to be, to become people who are rich in mercy too, just like our father in heaven. May we may we may we contemplate this message today, and may we learn to open ourselves, our full self up to God who is rich in mercy.