Sunday 30 March 2025

4rd Sunday of Lent – ​​Year C

Homily by Father Emmanuel Schwab

1st reading: Joshua 5, 9a.10-12

Psalm: 33 (34), 2-3, 4-5, 6-7

2rd reading: 2 Corinthians 5, 17-21

Gospel: Luke 15, 1-3.11-32

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There is so much to say from this Gospel that one does not know where to begin. Perhaps we should first contemplate the figure of the father? The father who appears as the one who is the source of life, the life of his sons. He gives them what they need to live, without worrying about what they do with it. And when the younger son leaves, goes to a distant land where he squanders his fortune leading a disorderly life, he knows very well where this fortune comes from. In a certain way, through this fortune that he asked his father for—symbolically killing him because usually one only receives the inheritance after the death of the one from whom one inherits—this fortune keeps within it the memory of the father… It is the father’s fortune. And while he spends, while he wastes this fortune, he knows very well where it comes from; so much so that, in a way, the father is always with him.

As for the eldest son, the father is indeed always with him, but the eldest son does not see him, does not understand him... Or rather, instead of living a filial relationship with the father, it seems that he lived a relationship of slave to a master: not a relationship of son to father, but a relationship of slave to master. He too did not understand the love of the father.

When the younger son finds himself in a bind, he has spent everything, he has wasted everything, and therefore seems to have gained nothing: he therefore has nothing left. The memory of the father is still there and he returns. He returns with two actions. The Gospel is very specific: “Getting up… I’m going to go” (ἀναστὰς πορεύσομαι). Getting up, I'm going to go: these are two different actions. The action of decision and the action of movement, that is to say, of perseverance in the decision taken. Let us not confuse these two moments, or rather these two aspects of return, because sometimes we end up exhausting ourselves trying to persevere in a decision that, deep down, we have never taken: I would like to, but I can't. Yes, but can I want ? Do I have décidé ? At what point did I get up so I could walk?

But if, while lying down, I try to walk, I will remain in my bed. If, while sitting, I try to walk, I will remain sitting. Only by standing up could I walk, and this is true for any conversion.

The son returns, refining his speech to try to get accepted and get better than what he found: he didn't even find the pods that pigs eat. When he arrives before his father, he says what he has prepared. His father interrupts him and gives him an unimaginable reception! Unimaginable for him, but not unimaginable for Saint Thérèse. It's a characteristic trait of the child she was... Her mother, Zélie, writes in a letter about Thérèse—and therefore this one at less than four and a half years old:

As soon as she has done something bad, everyone has to know about it. Yesterday, having accidentally knocked down a small corner of the tapestry, she was in a pitiful state, then we had to tell her Father quickly; he arrived four hours later, we didn't think anything more about it, but she quickly came to tell Marie: "Tell Papa quickly that I tore the paper." She is there like a criminal awaiting his sentence, but she has in her little mind that she will be forgiven more easily if she accuses herself. (MsA 5v — quote from a letter from Zélie)

This means, first of all, that Thérèse lived in a family where people loved each other very much. She understood the love her parents had for her. She understood that the love she received from her parents was far greater than all the stupid things she could do, all the mistakes she could make. And so she did not hesitate, when she knew she had done wrong, to come and expose herself to her parents' mercy.

She has a feeling that people will forgive her more easily if she accuses herself...

The prodigal son's return is in itself a confession. The words that come from his lips are the confession of his sin: "I have sinned". And what does he discover? Two wide-open arms that welcome him without reproach. Saint Therese will never cease to be dazzled by the depth of God's mercy. She will even speak, in a letter to her sister Mary, of blind hope that she has in the mercy of God (LT 197).

This experience she had as a child would serve her throughout her life. She would even return to this image two months before her death, in a letter she wrote to a seminarian, Father Bellière. She told him: I would like to try to make you understand by a very simple comparison how much Jesus loves even imperfect souls who confide in Him: I suppose that a father has two mischievous and disobedient children, and that coming to punish them he sees one of them who trembles and moves away from him in terror, yet having deep in his heart the feeling that he deserves to be punished; and that his brother, on the contrary, throws himself into the father's arms saying that he is sorry for having hurt him, that he loves him and that, to prove it, he will be good from now on, then this child asks his father to punish him with a kiss, I do not believe that the heart of the happy father could resist the filial trust of his child whose sincerity and love he knows. He is not unaware, however, that his son will fall back into the same faults more than once, but he is always willing to forgive him, if his son always takes him by the heart... I am not telling you anything about the first child, my dear little brother, you must understand if his father can love him as much and treat him with the same indulgence as the other... (LT 258 to Abbé Bellière – July 18, 1897)

This is the whole experience of Saint Therese's life: the experience of God's mercy. Ultimately, our difficulty, like that of the prodigal son, is to dare to believe in mercy, to dare to believe that we are loved to that extent.

The difficulty is to welcome an immense love and not be able to be done with this love. In worldly logic, we must give back... the Duponts invited us, we must invite them in turn. This is not a bad thing, but it is not God's logic. God's logic is to give without counting the cost, without return. And we would like him to give to us, but not to be in debt, to be done with it! And we miss out on mercy... God's mercy is a free, immense love. We can only welcome it with gratitude. And we have only one thing to do, which is to say thank you. This is what Jesus does on the evening of Holy Thursday: the word Eucharist means please, action of graceWe begin our week every Sunday by coming to say thank you for salvation, for mercy. And we want to say it with the thank you of Jesus. So God the Father gives us Jesus in communion so that we can live this thank you. And how can we live this thank you? By imitating God, and therefore by spreading mercy around us, by giving free love. It is about letting ourselves be crossed by the mercy of God. God shows us mercy so that we show mercy to our brothers: forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Let us cross…

Of course, we would like to love God without sin. Yes, the Church teaches us that God's grace allows us to renounce every mortal sin, that is, every serious sin committed with full conscience. But Thérèse knows well that we cannot avoid our failings of love.

In another letter to Bellière, she said to him: I am entirely of your opinion, "The divine Heart is more saddened by the thousand little indiscretions of its friends than by the even serious faults committed by people in the world" but, my dear little brother, it seems to me that it is only when his own, not noticing their continual indiscretions, make a habit of them and do not ask Him for forgiveness, that Jesus can say these touching words which are put into our mouths by the Church during Holy Week: "These wounds which you see in the midst of my hands, are those which I received in the house of those who loved me! » For those who love Him and who come after each indelicacy to ask Him for forgiveness by throwing themselves into His arms, Jesus leaps with joy, He says to His angels what the father of the prodigal son said to his servants: "Cloak him in his first robe, put a ring on his finger, let us rejoice." Ah! my brother, how little known are the goodness, the merciful love of Jesus!… It is true that to enjoy these treasures, one must humble oneself, recognize one's nothingness, and this is what many souls do not want to do. (LT 261 to Abbé Bellière – July 26, 1897)

And to conclude, this other word from Thérèse in another letter, again to the same Abbé Bellière:

Ah! My dear little Brother, since I have been given to understand the love of the Heart of Jesus, I confess to you that it has driven all fear from my heart. The memory of my faults humiliates me, leads me never to rely on my strength which is only weakness, but even more this memory speaks to me of mercy and love. (LT 247 to Abbé Bellière – June 21, 1897)

Brothers and sisters, with what we hear today in the readings of the liturgy and in this proclamation of the word of God, let us ask for the grace to know how to seriously prepare our Easter confession, so that we can go to the priest before Easter to receive God's mercy.

Amen

Father Emmanuel Schwab, Rector of the Shrine