We are in the midst of the Jubilee Year 2025. It began at Christmas. And Pope Francis has dedicated this year of prayer and renewal to the virtue
of Hope.
At the same time, we should be engaged at this moment in the annual exercise of Lenten penance and conversion. Properly understood, Lent helps us to both seek and celebrate God’s mercy. And it is precisely God’s mercy that is the source of our hope.
Throughout Lent we are reminded of the opening words of Jesus’s ministry as recorded in the Gospel of Mark. “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” (Mk 1:15). Jesus also emphasized that, “I have not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners.” (Lk 5:32). Both of these statements from the Lord remind us of that the mercy of God is abundant and overflowing.
People are often separated from God’s mercy for two reasons. First, the loss of the sense of sin deadens the recognition of our need for God’s mercy. Not recognizing our need deadens our hearts from the search for God’s forgiveness.
A second reason is that falling into sin, especially sin that is deep or habitual, leads to despair. The human heart is tempted to think that what it has done is disqualifying for God’s mercy. In a sense we can be tempted to think that even God’s love has its limits and we or others are beyond God’s mercy. Jesus’s own words tell us a different story.
Pope St. John Paul II wrote about mercy leading to hope. He did so by focusing on the parable of the Prodigal Son.
The pope commented that when the son demands from his father the inheritance that will come to him, and then walks away with the jingle of money in his pocket, his sinful heart turned to focusing on the things only of this world. The son gives no thought to how sin has separated him from his loving father. Sin caused him to lose sight of his own dignity and humanity as well as that of his father.
His loss of dignity is deepened as his sin continues and he lives a dissolute life. Even when the son hits rock bottom, broke, hungry and caring for another man’s pigs, his sin leads him to think in earthly terms. He reflects on his lack of food and the nutritional plenty of the workers of his father.
Only then does his heart begin the road to conversion. Against his own prior thoughts and will, he realizes that it is never too late to repent. He thinks of returning to his father, but asking only that he be treated not with his former dignity as a son, but as one of the workers. In this thought, however, is the beginning of hope. It is a dawning recognition that the greatest thing he squandered was his relationship with his father.
The link between mercy and hope is found in the waiting father. Seeing the son, he runs to him. The son’s return is important but so too is his confession of guilt. The father does not impose himself on his son. But when he returns, the father cares not about the wasted money. He embraces him and then puts on him anew the clothing and ring of his former dignity.
In this parable, we see ourselves and our sinfulness in the wayward son. We see God in that loving father. Sin is displayed not simply as the breaking of some arbitrary God-established rules, but as a rupture in the relationship with our own loving Father. Our dignity too needs repair, and God longs to give that to us.
Once again, I urge that we all be sure to make a confession during this Lenten season. It is the sacrament given by Christ to restore our hope, our dignity and our relationship with our Father.
Please remember that Be Reconciled Day will be Wednesday, April 9 when our parishes will seek to offer confession from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Please check your parish bulletin for precise details or go to bereconciled.rockforddiocese.org
