St. Mary Catholic Church-Shaw

When parents love their children, they are willing to do anything for them. It seems to happen, however, that children seldom realize how deep their parents’ love is for them. Both sons in Jesus’ parable today failed to understand their father’s love. Neither comprehended that his devotion to them precisely as his sons could never change, no matter what. The father could not even imagine altering his relationship with his sons. For stance, when the younger son (known as the prodigal son) realized his folly, he prepared a little speech to give to his father. In it he would recognize that he was no longer worthy to be called a son, the he would become a hired hand. When he arrived back home and attempted to give his speech, the father would have none of it. He threw his arms around the young man, kissed him, and called for a celebration. He rejoiced that his son is back and well received as the part of the family. The older son we somewhat sympathize with. After all, he had not left home but had continued to work dutifully for his father. He refused to join the party for his younger brother, and the reason he gave for his refusal revealed that he too had failed to understand his relationship with his father. He thought of himself as “slaving” for his father with an expectation of a reward. He was not serving his father out of love. The father responded, “You are with me always and everything I have is yours.” Even when the older son refused to come into the house for the celebration, the father went out to him and pleaded with him. Even more remarkable is God our Father. To begin to understand and appreciate our God, we must remember who we are. We are children of God, his beloved sons and daughters. God will never change his loving relationship with us, even if we abandon him. No matter how foolish we may be in life, no matter how far we may wander from God, our Father reaches out to us by his grace.

It's obvious that Jesus did not want to deceive anybody about the difficulty of being his disciple. In the gospel he is setting down three very hard conditions and demands. If one wants to be his disciple, one must break away from (“hate”) one's family, goods and one's own life. These demands are unacceptable by one who wants to be led by human arguments. They can be understood and accepted only by one who has been granted the ''wisdom from above'', as we read in the first reading. The letter to Philemon is a beautiful example of the practice of love, forgiveness and detachment from material goods. Some people reply to these difficulties by saying that in the language of Jesus the verb ''to hate'' means also ''to love less'' or ''to have less importance''. This is true, but I don't think this is the right solution. Why? In the first place because love can never be constrained within predefined limits. The greater the love the better, and God takes as addressed to him all love shown to people. There is no danger of loving too much, therefore, of exaggerating. Moreover, it makes no sense to reduce the severe words of our Master to a matter of quantity: ''to love more, to love less.'' Jesus can certainly not be speaking of ''hatred'', but of ''clear cuts'' whenever necessary to remain faithful to the gospel. So here ''to hate'' means certainly to break even the dearest bonds if they are a hindrance to love.

A simple but impressive ceremony occurs during the Good Friday liturgy. After the people have gathered, the priest and ministers prostrate themselves in silence before the altar. It is an awesome expression of humility before the Lord. The priest and ministers lying or kneeling before the altar look like dead men. But then they stand to show that they have been raised from the death of sin to newness of life in Christ. This ancient ritual is now expressed in a less dramatic way during the penitential rite of the Mass. Before God and each other we acknowledge our sinfulness and our need for God's mercy. In a sense we prostrate before the Lord. It is our way of fulfilling the instruction of Jesus, “When you are invited to a wedding party, go and sit in the lowest place.” Jesus’ instruction is in accord with the wisdom we hear from the Book of Sirach: “Conduct your affairs with humility. Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and will find favor with God.'' And find favor with God we have. Through his son's offering of himself on the cross, the Father has raised us up to new life. When we have humbled ourselves during the penitential rite - after we have spiritually prostrated ourselves or taken the lowest place - Christ says to us, “Come up higher,” Then we can take our place with the dignity Christ has conferred upon us. We can participate fully in the sacrifice which is the great wedding banquet of the Lamb of God and so happy indeed are we, lowly though we are in ourselves, that through the Eucharist we will be led to a high place in heaven where we will enjoy the great wedding banquet of the Lamb of God.

Is it hard to get into heaven? Jesus seems to say it is when he warns, “Try to come in through the narrow door.” His warning is somewhat confusing since he also says that “People will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and will take their place at the feast in the Kingdom of God.” The prophecy from Isaiah today says much the same thing. In other words, there will be a lot of people for the kingdom. How are all of them going to make it through the narrow door? I think of what happens on a freeway (or expressway) when there is a bad accident. The police close off three lanes; only a single lane is open which is like the narrow door. All the traffic slows down and at times comes to a complete stop because of the bottleneck. As I think of the narrow door Jesus referred to, I see people all bunched up like cars on the freeway, moving very slowly, trying to squeeze through the one open lane. Drivers are upset. They are fussing and fuming and making obscene gestures at each other. Cars and tempers are overheating. The bottleneck is a pain in the neck. Sin is like the accident on the freeway which causes all the trouble! This is not an inviting scene, this image of what it means to get to heaven. But when I think more clearly about the image of the narrow door, I realize that actually only one person has to get through the door. That person is Jesus. And through the door to heaven he has passed in the paschal Mystery of his death and resurrection. We do not have to force our way through the narrow door. All we need do is make sure we are united with Jesus. Many bodies do not have to get through the door, only one, and that is the body of Christ, the mystical body of Christ, the Church. And yet with it all, the indispensable requirement is that we be faith people, that we remain united with Christ in his mystical body, the Church. That is the way to make sure that we will make it past all the fuss and bother of this world into the eternal kingdom of heaven.