A Compassionate God, A Loving God, A Waiting God, A Grateful God

In the Gospel for today, Lk 15: 1-3, 11-32, Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son. As we reflect upon that parable, we might  pray as follows:

Jesus, I am the prodigal over and over again. Each time I turn off the path that transforms my attitudes, my thoughts, and my behaviors into those that are prompted by grace, You await my return. Each day You peer down the path I have taken that distances me from being the disciplined, loving, patient, kind, forgiving woman (man), spouse, mother/father, Sister/Priest, employee/employer, servant/recipient of service You call me to be.  You wait for me to turn around (metanoia) and recognize that I have chosen a path that alienates me from my true self, from others and from You. You wait lovingly for any sign that I have turned around and when I do You excitedly rush toward me.   You cast behind You all of my sins and totally rejoice in my return!

 Imagine Jesus hugging you, throwing a party for you, rejoicing in heaven with all of the angels and saints! Yes, Jesus truly rejoices each time you and I turn back to Him. And He waits for that, every time we stray, every time we make choices that are not in tune with His Father’s will for us.  What an awesome God, a God about whom the prophet Micah in today’s first reading says: 

Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance; who does not persist in anger forever, but delights rather in clemency, and will again have compassion on us, treading underfoot our guilt?  You will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins (recall the time Jesus sent the demons into the herd of 2000 pigs, all of whom drown in the sea)…. (Micah 7: 14-15, 18-20).

 
This is your God, folks! And mine!

God's Makes Haste to Find Us

Today’s readings are from Song of Songs 2: 8-14 and Lk 1: 39-45.  Song of Songs reminds us that God is our Lover, our Beloved.  He comes to save us from sin and selfishness. He comes with haste. As Mary hurried to visit her cousin Elizabeth, so does  God hurry to visit us.  He comes “springing across the mountains” (Song of Songs 2: 8) that we use to block others from getting close to us, ourselves from getting close to ourselves and to the truth within us.  Those mountains and hills are not mountains and hills to the Lord. God levels them, making His way to our hearts, our thoughts, our anxieties.  As nothing stops a lover from reaching his/her beloved (that beloved is not always a person but  may be something that is destructive), so, too nothing stops God from finding us, His beloved child.  God stands “behind our wall, gazing through the windows [into our souls], peering through the lattices” (Song of Songs 2: 9)  into the deepest caverns of our beings.  As a leaping  gazelle or a young stag (cf. Songs of Songs 2: 9) dashes among the hills looking for that which their young hearts desire, so, too, does God look for us.  God longs to enter our wombs/our humanity as God entered Mary’s womb.  Just as Mary brought joy to Elizabeth and just as Elizabeth recognized God’s presence in Mary,  you and I also have the choice of letting Jesus into our lives and bringing Jesus to others, bringing joy to others, as well as recognizing God in those who enter our lives today (or, as the case may be, recognizing that they are not communicating a divine presence) and moving on to persons, places and things that to bring us closer to God.