Dom Edmund Adams, Church Assembly Talk
October 15, 2009

Today's topic is God's forgiveness.  Jesus Christ told us how his and our Father responds to us in the state of mortal sin, that is, that sin by which we intentionally cut ourselves off from God.  He did so especially by means of the parable of the Prodigal or Lost Son.

The younger son in the parable asked his father to give him now his share of what he would inherit at his father's death.  He takes it, leaves his father, then blows all the money on dissipation.  I used to ask CD 1 students what was that son's worst sin?  It is not what he did with the money; it is that all he wanted from his father was his inheritance and he could not wait for him to die.  Taking all his father was good for to him, he leaves him, not intending to return.

My second question is:  Why does the younger son return to his father?  Some people make much of the statement that he came to his senses and that he prepares a speech of confession.  Yet he returns for only one reason:  he is hungry, starving.  He is not returning with a son's love of his father.  Assuming he won't be taken back as a son (thus showing how little he understands his father), he just wants to work and be fed as his father's workers are.  He plans what to say to his father and heads home.

My third question to CD 1 was:  is it true or false that the father embraces his son after the son confesses his guilt?  It is false.  The father recognizes his son far off, runs to him and embraces him before the son gets a word out.  He then ignores his son's prepared confession, being too busy ordering up the celebration for his son's return.

The sulking elder brother not only resents his brother (whom he calls "your son," not "my brother"), but thinks his father wants only obedience to his commands.  Again, there is no sign of love from either son.

So, what does this tell us about God's forgiveness?  What does he require to forgive our betrayal and rejection of him?  For this, not disobedience to laws and commands, is what sin is.

The Church requires three things for sacramental absolution:  contrition, confession, and penance.  Jesus tells us here that God requires none of these.  As the Church knows, it is we who need to express sorrow, confess and face up to our infidelity, and attempt at least some reparation - and we need the sacramental life to live truly.  The elder son was wrong:  our Father is not intent on obedience to his commands, although he knows that we, whom he loves, will hurt ourselves when we reject his ways to follow self-will.

God our Father, according to Jesus his Son, requires of us only one thing: come home.  The father forgave his son, as our Father forgives us, even before the sin - though we are faithless, he is faithful, and his forgiveness is within his love.  God our Father - and our Mother - loves and forgives us because we are his children, caring only, for our sake and his, that we come home.  This question is not will God accept us back as his son or daughter or on what terms will he accept us, but will we accept being his children.  Perhaps, through the knowledge that love brings, we may come to understand him better and, knowing who he really is, learn who we really are.

There is one more thing, which I will take up next time I speak here:  given all this, we must forgive one another from the bottom of our hearts.

###