As I said in my introduction the theme of all pilgrimages this year is reconciliation with God. Here at the Grotto we remember how Our Lady appealed for penance – penance for our own sins and the sins of the world. Mary yearns to see all of us and the world reconciled to God through the passion, death and resurrection of her son.

Sin in the World

All over the world today we see the evil of sin at work in the world. We see hatred, violence, terrorism, and war. We see human beings massacred and mutilated. We see ethnic cleansing and millions of refugees. We see one-third of the world over fed and the rest of the world starving.

At national level we see huge corruption at the highest level. We see murdering - gangs killing one another in our cities and indeed members of the same families injuring and killing each other. Each one of us is conscious of sin in our own lives. Indeed we must always realise that all the sin in the world has its roots in the individual hearts of human persons of people who chose to turn away from God and allow the pleasures of this world possess their hearts and minds.

Sense of Sin

The great tragedy today is that all of us are losing our sense of sin – our awareness of the evil that sin is. We are being desensitised to the evil of sin in our lives. There is nothing special about it anymore. It is just a part of our lives like dampness on the wall or dandruff in our hair. And when we feel guilty at all, if we ever do, the great cop out is “sure we are all human”.

The Prodigal Son

When I wish to reflect on the evil that sin is I always go back to the story of the prodigal son where Jesus reveals what sin really is. And he tells the story in three phases:

Firstly the son is at home with the father.
Secondly the son demands his inheritance, turns away from the father seeking the pleasures of alcohol, sex and depravation of every kind.
Thirdly he comes to his senses and returns to the embrace of the father’s love.

The life of the son with the Father

Let us first look at the life of the son at home with the father. For Jesus the home is not necessary a house with windows, walls and doors. No the first home of the son and of each one of us is where we experience in our hearts the unconditional love of God. It all begins in baptism but we experience it especially in the sacraments of first confession, first communion and confirmation.

Home means being in that loving relationship with the Father where I can hear in my heart the words Jesus heard at baptism. You are my beloved child, on you my favour rests.

Home means that moment or time when I know in my heart that I belong to God with every fibre of my being. It means that God holds me safe and secure in the eternal embrace of His Love.

Home is that moment in time where at the very depths of my being I know I am called by name, that I am indeed carved in the palm of God’s hands and hidden in His shadow.

The Prodigal Son at home

This is where we find the prodigal son at first. And we must ask why are people tempted to turn away from such love?

Indeed why do any of us ever chose to leave such all embracing, all forgiving unconditional love and sacrifice it all for the passing pleasures and conditional love of the world. The world tells us that love is not a free gift from God – that you must earn the love the world – that you must prove that you are worth loving. The world will love you if you have what it wants money, property, power. The world will love you if you are intelligent, young and beautiful. All these hidden “if’s” in the conditional love of the world can enslave us as they enslaved the prodigal son. The world told him that self-fulfilment and happiness lie in these:

- in the accumulation of wealth and power
- in acquiring status and popularity
- in the lavish consumption of food and drink
- in the sexual gratification that confuses lust for love

People like the prodigal son who respond to these calls from the world become addicted and enslaved.

The prodigal son finds himself living in a foreign country that is in a friendship that will dump him the moment he is on his own.

He has none of the money or the power left that the world is seeking.

Why leave home?

Therefore why did he leave home in the first place? Why did he demand his inheritance which in that culture was never asked before the father died? Indeed to ask it was to say “Father I am not prepared to wait for your death. Indeed all this means is I wish you were dead”.

Why did he turn away from the love of the Father in this way?! Why do any of us turn away from the unconditional love of God for the conditional love and pleasure that lead to slavery and addiction?

It is because the call of the world is louder and more boisterous than the gentle voice of God, the quiet voice of God that can be heard only in the hidden plans of my being in the silence of an open heart.

Remember Elijah did not hear the voice of God in the hurricane or in the earthquake or in the fire. No he felt and heard God’s presence and voice in the gentle breeze.

The son comes to his senses

Yes the prodigal son becomes a slave to his own selfishness and the selfishness of the world. It was only when he realised that he was being denied even the food of animals. It was only when he realised that his humanity was being denied that he rediscovered a sense of who he was.

He never forgot that he was indeed a son of the father and in the end it was this that saved him.

He would go back and ask the Father to receive him not as a son but as a servant. What he did not realise and what we sometimes forget is that no matter what we do the Father never ceases to love us with that unconditional love. He loved the son before he left home. He loved him while he was away from home lost in sin. And he never ceased thinking or looking out for the son. And when he sees him he ran to embrace him. No he is not coming back as a servant or a slave. He is coming back “as the beloved son on whom the favour of the Father rests”.

The ring on his finger, the sandals on his feet, the cloak on his shoulders are indeed the signs that he remains loved as son-deep in the heart of God – his father.

Dear People,

There are many times and many situations in life when we are prepared to leave home to leave that place where we are eternally loved by God and pursue the passing, conditional, pleasures of the world. May the Holy Spirit give us the light to see how our sins and the sins of the world reject and hurt the Lord who has made Himself vulnerable in love for all of us. May the same Holy Spirit help us and the world to come to our senses, to discover who we really are and find ourselves through prayer and penance back in the all embracing, all forgiving unconditional love of the Father – back home where we all truly belong now and forever.

Christopher Jones
29th August 2007