From The Bishop

This is a repost from Bishop Gerard Bergie 4th Sunday of Lent Meditation, 2016. The Fourth Sunday of Lent is called Laetare Sunday and the title is taken from the first sentence of the Introit (Entrance Antiphon) of the Mass: “Rejoice Jerusalem, and all who love her”. There are many reasons to rejoice; a significant one is God’s desire to reconcile the world to Himself. This is the theme found in the prayers (Collect) and Readings (Second Reading and Gospel) of this Mass. The Gospel parable of the Prodigal Son should cause us to rejoice because we have a Merciful Father. Despite the fact that we may have moved far away from God due to our sin and hardness of heart, God is always waiting for our return. If we take a moment to focus on the father rather than the sons of this parable, we can be drawn to his own anguish and suffering. His loving heart has been wounded by the selfish actions of his two sons; he has only shown them goodness and love and they have rejected him each in their own way. The younger son by declaring him dead (“give me my share of the property that will belong to me”) and the older son by calling him his master (“For all these years I have been working like a slave for you…”). How could they have such a distorted image of their father? It is a sad reality that, like these two sons, a growing number of people today also have a flawed image of God our Father. It was the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who made the famous statement, “God is dead”. Unfortunately many people act as if God were dead because He makes no difference in their lives. There is a great indifference; God is ignored and in the most extreme cases, God’s very existence is denied. There are others who see God as a cruel task master who allows bad things to happen. God is not engaged and remains at a distance uninterested in the world and the lives of His people. I am sure that like the father of the parable this causes God our Father unfathomable grief and sadness as he patiently and mercifully waits for us to “come home” and to “join the celebration”. He offers us so much love and seems to receive very little in return from us His children. In revealing His Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Jesus said, “Behold my heart that loves so much and is loved so little.” In response she helped to spread devotion to His Sacred Heart so that He would be loved. St. Therese of Lisieux discovered that her vocation in life was love. Shortly before her death she wrote, “I feel that my mission is about to begin, my mission to make God loved as I love Him…” Should this not also be our mission? This Sunday let us “rejoice” in the Father’s love; let us make it our mission to return that love and encourage others to do the same.