Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are called to seek the Lord and His forgiveness and mercy. We are called to embrace the Lord and His compassionate love, keeping in mind how He cares for each and every one of us, and how blessed we truly are for having Him as our loving Father and Creator. It was because of this love that all of us once again have hope and not be in despair because of our sins.

By right, our sins born of the rebellion and disobedience against God would have led us down the path of eternal damnation and destruction, and we would have suffered the consequences of those sins. However, God Who is ever merciful, patient in love and caring towards us have always tried His best to find us and be reconciled with us once again. God has shown us His compassion, care and mercy, and as a loving Father He wants us all to be reconciled to Him. To this extent, He continued to give us guidance and direction as we progress through life.

In our first reading today we heard from the Book of the prophet Micah, we heard the Lord speaking through Micah reminding all of us His people, that is no one else but God Who is truly loving as a Shepherd, Who guides and guards His beloved flock, while also chastising and disciplining those who have fallen away from the right path. Ultimately, He cares for us and does not want us to fall to the wrong path, for if we do fall, then in the end, we shall be judged by those sins and the evils that we have committed.

We heard also then of the famous story of the prodigal son in our Gospel passage today, in which we heard about how a young man who had been estranged from his father and went to a far-off foreign land, came back to his father and humbled himself before the father, begging him to forgive his sins and his faults, all the mistakes and unworthy things that he had done that made him to be unworthy to be called his father’s child anymore.

Yet, in that story, as we know it, the father did not become angry with the prodigal son. Instead, he called all of his servants and told them all to prepare for a great feast and celebration in honour of the return of his son. When the elder son was jealous at the treatment by the father for the younger, prodigal son, the father patiently explained how the prodigal son had been lost and thought to have perished, and by returning to the father with great regret and sincere desire to be forgiven, it is indeed an occasion worth celebrating.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, remembering our own treatment by the Lord, our most loving God and Father, we surely cannot be not touched by the examples shown by the parable of the prodigal son, the love that the father in the parable showed to his son, even after all the vices and wickedness the latter had committed, in squandering his money and in all of the other unworthy actions and attitudes. Just as the father’s love in the parable was genuine, unconditional and enduring, that is just how the Lord loves each and every one of us.

That is why during this season of Lent all of us are called to turn our gaze and attention towards the Lord anew, and to repent from our sinful ways and from our rebelliousness and disobedience. We have been given many avenues and opportunities to be reconciled with the Lord, through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, through the loving hands of the Church and through the many tireless spiritual workers in our bishops and priests who spend much of their time and effort in guiding us to the right path.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, can we humble ourselves before the Lord and repent from our faults and sins? Let us all be like the prodigal son and seek the Lord for His forgiveness, that He alone can forgive us from our sins and heal us from our brokenness. Let us all find the Lord and dedicate ourselves to Him anew, entrusting ourselves in His care, in His loving providence and compassionate grace. May the Lord be with us all, His beloved ones, and may He welcome us all back to Him with His ever generous mercy and love. Amen.