This long gospel with the three familiar characters that we all know so well almost doesn’t need a homily or an explanation. So today, we should take just a couple of minutes to turn one phrase over in our minds. It’s that wonderful cinematic moment at the real turning point in this story when we’re told that the prodigal son suddenly came to his senses. Came to his senses, a great phrase, as if he finally began to use his senses, after years of just indulging them, he opened his eyes and ears and noticed the unhappy world that he had surrounded himself with and in a moment, it looked different, and he realized how wrong it was for him, and what needed to change.
But what the words in the original language really say, apparently, is that he came to himself. And that is in a way an even better phrase to remember, because what he saw when he opened his eyes and ears and mind was: his real self. He saw that the life he had been living in a distant country was not his life. And he realized that his own life, his own self, the one God had given him and not the one he had mistakenly chosen, that was the life and the self and the identity that was meant for him. When he reaches that moment, he is on the way to great happiness.
Most of us have not gone off the rails spectacularly enough to be called a prodigal son or daughter. And that’s good. Our lives are much quieter and wouldn’t make for a great story like this. But it may be that we can see something of ourselves here anyway. Because we all have an inheritance just as the younger son did, an inheritance from a rich father, an inheritance of love and talent, a life that is given to us to live, and work that is ours to do.
Sometimes we are aware of this inheritance, but at other times we live as if we are no longer aware of what it really is. And we find ways to neglect it and even squander it, without even trying to. We stay stubbornly with bad decisions from our past, we withdraw from the part of the world and from the people where we are most needed and wanted, we hold harsh opinions and judgments that we have become used to, we live and work according to rules that we don’t really in our heart believe in. It all becomes so familiar that we don’t notice, but over time we may have ended up living in a distant country, far from home, living a life that isn’t quite ours, the one we were meant to have.
So what is the message here for unspectacular prodigal people like us?
Please God, it is not that grown children who have left home would be better off moving back with their parents. I for one have reasons to need that not to be the message of the gospel. In fact you could make the case that the older son in this story has stored up so much anger and resentment that he should have left and gotten his own apartment a long time ago.
Instead, the message of this story comes from the real main character, the father. It’s what he does with these two stubborn and disappointing children, the one who left and wasted his property, and the one who stayed and never broke the rules but secretly hated it. He is waiting for the first moment when that younger child he loves so much comes to himself. And at that first moment, the past is over, regrets are over, there is only the future. It’s not easy for this prodigal son to leave one life and start over on another one, to turn towards home. It’s embarrassing, there is a lot to try to undo and a lot to do. For him and for us, it’s always easier to stay where we are, always, no matter how unhappy we are there.
But God is waiting for us to come to ourselves, running towards us before we have even had a chance to put our desires into words or plans. That experience of shedding our old life and putting on our real one must be as exciting as putting on a royal wardrobe meant for us, as refreshing as a snake shedding an old skin. The joy that ends this reading is what is there for every prodigal, all of us who turn around and come to themselves. If you are looking for something to pray about for the rest of Lent, then imagine what it would be like if you could remember something of your true self and where you need to be, and how quickly God would rush to be with you if you did.