February 27, 2016 Saturday, 2nd Week of Lent 1st
Reading: Mic 7:14–15, 18–20 Gospel: Lk 15:1–3, 11–32
Jesus told them this parable: “There was a man with two sons. The younger said to his father: ‘Give me my share of the estate.’ So the father divided his property between them.
“The younger son started off for a distant land where he squandered his wealth in loose living. Having spent everything, he hired himself out to a well-to-do citizen of that place and was sent to work on a pig farm. Finally coming to his senses, he said: ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will get up and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against God and before you. I no longer deserve to be called your son. Treat me then as one of your hired servants.’ With that thought in mind he set off for his father’s house.
“He was still a long way off when his father caught sight of him. His father was so deeply moved with compassion that he ran out to meet him, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. The son said: ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you’ But the father turned to his servants: ‘Quick! Bring out the finest robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Take the fattened calf and kill it. We shall celebrate and have a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has come back to life. He was lost and is found.’ And the celebration began.
Now the older son became angry, and when he refused to enter the house, his father came out and pleaded with him. He said to his father in reply, ‘Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’ He said to him, ‘My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life, again; he was lost and has been found.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
A cursory reading of today’s Gospel might show the elder brother loving the father more. No. If he felt like a slave at the father’s house, as he admitted during their confrontation, he was not happy being with him – an unmistakable sign of the absence of love.
Like the elder son, many who have remained in the Church are disgruntled Christians. Whether we are the prodigal son or we are the elder brother in today’s Gospel story, we all need God’s mercy and compassion.—Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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