In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15) we see an example of how difficult this is. Like any parent, the father wants to keep his family together, and he wants his children to get along with each other. However, as in many families, the younger son decides to leave the father who loves him and he “sets off” for a life of sin. Time goes by until, as St. Luke says, he “went back” home. The father caught sight of him a long way off because he went out (daily?) to search for his son. The younger son asks for forgiveness, and the father irrationally—but joyfully—forgives him and throws a lavish party on his behalf. Because, as Pope Francis writes in his letter introducing the Year of Mercy, “Mercy will always be greater than any sin, and no one can place limits on the love of God who is ever ready to forgive” (The Face of Mercy, art.3). God quickly and joyfully forgives those who ask for His mercy. Love is one side of the coin, and mercy is the other.
When the older brother heard of his brother’s return and the ensuing party in the house, “he became angry, and when he refused to enter the house his father came out and pleaded with him.” The father can’t win—just as soon as the younger son returns, the older son leaves. So the father goes out of the house again and pleads with him to come inside, to forgive his brother, to come back home and rejoin the family.
Both sons left the father’s house, and the father went out twice to search for his sons and bring them back home. He did everything he could to keep his family together and to reconcile his sons with each other. The younger son he was able to bring back into his house, the older son, he was not (or at least we don’t know what the older son ended up doing). One son asked for forgiveness, the other son was invited to forgive. Both asking for and granting forgiveness are essential in the spiritual life, and especially in family life.
Both forgiving and asking for forgiveness are difficult, and it often takes a long time before we are ready for either. In this Year of Mercy we are invited to practice the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, one of which is to forgive offenses. In his Pastoral Letter on the Year of Mercy, Bishop Barnes invites us to “Find spaces to practice forgiveness and mercy.” Often times those ‘spaces’ are people. There are many people in our lives whom we need to forgive, and from whom we need to ask forgiveness, most especially family and friends. Some of them are still alive, some are deceased. Some we know personally, but even the ones we do not know personally we need to forgive—criminals, politicians, whole groups of people from another religion or another ethnicity—whomever you might hold a grudge against.
Sometimes we find ourselves like the younger son—humbled and contrite as we beg God for mercy. Sometimes we find ourselves like the older son—proud and stubborn as we nurse our grudges and refuse to forgive. But we’re really called to be like the father—going out in search of those who need our forgiveness and those who refuse to forgive.
During this Lenten season and Year of Mercy, in imitation of the prodigal son, ask for forgiveness of family members whom you’ve hurt. In imitation of the older brother, let go of a grudge and come back home. And most importantly, in imitation of the father, go out in search of those who have wandered away and forgive generously and joyfully.
Father David Andel is the Judicial Vicar of the Diocese of San Bernardino.