Love, Mercy, Agape

While Lent is a time of self-discipline, simplicity and preparation for dark days, there are also many beautiful moments associated with these forty days. I can remember as a Catholic school-boy attending confession during Advent and Lent. When I was younger, I tried to play “the game”. I knew which priests “gave” the “easier” penance acts, and made an effort to try a see the priest who would ask for “One Hail Mary” rather than the priest who would tell me to go and ask for forgiveness from the people I wronged. That act of penance would take great courage.

The older I’ve gotten, I have really come to enjoy Lent, despite the somber tones. In these solemn days, light shines through in the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In the confession of sins, we can begin the Easter Triduum with a renewed Spirit, ready to encounter the risen Christ. This Sacrament is a way to celebrate God’s Mercy and Love. I find that forgiveness (both the asking and the acceptance of it) is not easy. How incredible is it that God, Our Father, will forgive us, with no strings attached? He simply wants us to be better: be a better husband, be a better father, be a better teacher or mentor, be a better friend. Be better. And just as He offers forgiveness, so to, does God ask us to forgive those who trespass against us. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians in today’s second reading, “we are ambassadors for Christ/As if God were appealing through us” (2 Cor 5:20). Just as God forgives us our wrongs, we must act as God’s ambassadors and offer forgiveness to those who wrong us—many times easier said than done!

Today’s readings deal with this unending love, mercy and God’s forgiveness. Our Gospel comes from Luke and is the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The story involves a son asking his father for his share of the inheritance so he is able to go off on his own. What a tremendous act of faith and support the father shows by giving his son this large amount of money. Eventually, the son returns, hat in hand, asking for forgiveness as he has spent all of the money given to him. His choices were so poor that he even ended up as a servant on a pig farm. When the boy returned home, the father “caught sight of [his son] and was filled with compassion…/[embracing] him and [kissing] him” (Lk 15). The son begs for forgiveness and the father greets him with love and mercy. This parable is a beautiful metaphor for our own relationship with God. No matter how poor are choices are, God is there to greet us and embrace us, welcoming us back.

Later in the parable, an older brother questions the father’s reaction to the younger brother’s return. The older brother was faithful and loyal and yet he feels slighted because the father never once recognized him for all of his positive traits. I like to think that eventually, the older son forgives his father, displaying his own mercy, serving as an “ambassador” of God’s forgiveness himself. A smaller lesson I take away from that portion of the story is the power of recognition. Just as we recognize and celebrate the enormous power of God’s love and mercy, Lent is an opportunity to recognize the daily small actions we see others do for us in our lives. These forty days are a great time to take the everyday people, the people we live with, the people we love and need, and thank them and not take them for granted.

My hope and prayer during this Lenten time is to recognize the ultimate act of Love, which will take place on that Good Friday, and use that powerful image in my own life, recognizing the unsung heroes I encounter, and offering forgiveness to others, just as I have been forgiven.

Author: Colin Hanley, Senior Counselor