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My brothers and sisters in Christ, on Friday evening I gathered with all of our seminarians and we had what we called the scrutiny of the Word, where we take this Gospel and we read it and for forty five minutes we are in silence and we let the Word, which is Jesus of course, scrutinize us, examine us and the response and the words and the reflections of the seminarians were really wonderful, so part of what I say this morning comes as a fruit of that reflection with the seminarians this past Friday.
We already have sixteen seminarians for next year who are beginning the application process to become members of the spirituality year, we have five this year, we already for next September have sixteen applying, that is remarkable, we have not seen that number of seminarians forty years so it is really a great sign of hope.
I think the fruit of all of this is because the Archbishop has placed vocations above all of his other works as an Archbishop, he realizes that without priestly vocations, without heroic young men coming forward to be priests we are really dead in the water because the sacramental life is the heart of our Catholic life, and so it is a great sign of hope, continue to keep that in your prayers.

This parable that we’ve heard of the prodigal son is well worn, we’ve heard it many, many times, and because we’ve heard it so often we are in danger of letting it become not that great of an impact to us. But it is the most moving of all of the parables. The experience and the lives of the two sons serve to reveal the heart of the Father, and this parable is wonderful.
The first son, the father grants to his son his request and hands over to him a portion of his inheritance. For us the portion of our inheritance is our freedom, our minds, our hearts, our wills, the graces and blessings that only God could give us. That is the inheritance from the Father, and the son wastes it all and he ends up in horrible trouble, his terrible hunger finally brings him to his senses. All the while, the father with the greatest love awaits his sons return. The Father’s compassion is wonderful; his anxious waiting upon the son, the warm greeting, his restoration as a son instead of a slave, and the wonderful feast of thanksgiving. And the son, that youngest son, he leaves the Father one fine day dressed in beautiful robes with high hopes, lots of money and with the spring in his step. He is young and he is leaving the father and he thinks that he is walking into freedom. With the father out of the way, the wide world holds endless promise, promise of happiness and excitement and fulfillment. Serving his father appears dull slavery, and compared to the glittering promise that the world and all of its bigness opens up to him.
He returns months or years later after he has wasted all of the graces that he has received from his father. He is literally starving to death, he is a walking skeleton, he is dressed in rags and he is filthy dirty from living with a swine. He comes back to the father thoroughly beaten up by the world and some of us know that experience. He thought the world would give him freedom and instead he has been reduced to slavery. In leaving the father he has purchased his own slavery and has paid a high price in doing so.
But what about the elder son? The older son never leaves the father’s side, he stays dutifully behind at the farm, so he is the better of the two sons, isn’t he? No. Does he have a greater love for his father than his younger brother? No. He bitterly sums up his life with the father by saying: "For years father I have slaved for you, and you’ve given me next to nothing." It doesn’t sound much like love to me. Why does he stay? Why does he stay? If he hangs around long enough, well finally one day his father will ‘kick the bucket’ and he will receive his inheritance. So he just has to hang on longer than the father does, and then he’ll get what he wants. He serves his father but with resentment and with bitterness. How does the father treat this son? Not even for this son does the father have a harsh word. This son remains outside in the darkness while the great is going on inside. He pouts and says he will not come inside, and the father comes outside and patiently tells him the truth. Everyone who remains with the father already has his inheritance, already possess everything in common with the father. "My son", he says, "You are with me always, and everything I have is  yours".
Although he doesn’t leave his father’s house he never loved the father. He sees his life with the father as one of slavery, and so he never can see into the father’s heart. And that’s the heart of the Catholic life, to see into the heart of our heavenly Father.
So what is the point of these two sons? Through them our Lord Jesus shows us the inner heart of our heavenly Father, our Father’s love for us is passionate, it is eager, it is watchful, it cannot be lessened because of our sins and failings. God loves us so intensely that even now He gives us our inheritance; we don’t wait until the end, we receive the inheritance now, and that makes our life a joy. He guards us and works His will in us even when we are unaware, captured by the glitter of our world. How can we doubt His love for us? How can we doubt that even in the middle of our deepest and darkest sin, our Father awaits us eagerly on the road to restore the robe of sonship when at last we grow sick of our sin and we turn to our Father in heaven.
Because our Father loves us with such a passion, He loves you and He loves me with this kind of attentive passion. There is no evil that is so deep that God’s grace is not deeper still. There is no evil, listen to me, there is no evil or sin out of which God cannot work great goodness if we just run back to our Father. And we know this to be true. If we run to our Father all will be well. We know this is true because when we were very small, tiny little children we knew that our fathers could fix anything, just so long as we run back to them with tears in our eyes, all would be well, and they could fix up anything. Our Father in heaven embraces us and washes away the bitterness, the filth and the sorrow that are so much a part of this world when at last we run to Him.
The problem is not that God doesn’t love us enough; the problem is that we do not love Him enough, or obey Him enough, or trust Him enough, or run into His arms where all will be well. If we did, oh how we would be able to say: "I have sinned against heaven and against You my Father, and no longer deserve to be called Your son" and then our Father truly would embrace us, and what joy there would be in that embrace.
Saints like Saint Paul and Saint Augustine, they sinned with great intensity and they did for much of their lives, but with an even greater passion and greater intensity, thanks be to God, they returned to the Father, and that’s their salvation. For the rest of their lives they loved the Father who had forgiven them and restored them to sonship, and they loved Him with and ardent love firmly convinced that He had restored them to the inheritance that they had so foolishly squandered. And may it be so with us.
What about the older son? With the older son I close.
May God preserve us from being like him, may God preserve us from being Catholics like him. This is a great danger for us who have been Catholics our entire lives. In a sense one of our greatest hazards is being like the older son. The older son served his father, he never left his side but he never loved him, he sees his life of one of dull drudgery and slavery. He slaves for a father that he does not love, but from whom he hopes, one day at the end to receive his inheritance. He hangs in there now afraid to be disobedient to his father because he sees the inheritance off in the future, somewhere, someday. The poor son doesn’t realize that he’s already received the inheritance. He is with the father already, he is at the father’s side, he enjoys the father’s love, the father has already given to him all that is his. Just to be with the Father, what greater grace or joy could there be? If only he loved Him... God preserve us from living the Catholic life in this sort of way. In the light of our glittering modern world it’s easy for the things of the Father to seem rather dull and rather enslaving. We may not love God a great deal, but we basically obey His commands, we live a moral life, we keep our commitments afraid that we’ll lose our inheritance is we don’t; and because of this we see our marriages, our children, our families and our jobs as dull drudgery to be endured, and wait until we are sixty five until we can retire and somehow think we’ll be rid of all responsibility; and we think we got to hang in there until the hour of our death, because only then we’ll win the inheritance of heaven, and our Father says: "I give you Myself even now, and the inheritance you already have will only grow greater, infinitely greater in the reward of heaven; but I’ve given it to you now already." But because we don’t see the Father’s love for us we see our marriages, and children and jobs as dull drudgery to be endured; and this life, we feel trapped, and what a sad way to live our lives; no real joy, no real zeal, no real passion in our service but a feeling of being trapped and our lives become summarized by the older son’s complaint: "For years and years I have slaved for You, and I have received next to nothing."
May God replace the anger of slavery with the joy of sonship, and being a daughter in Christ. The Catholic life and our life is not one of grim duty, but one of passionate love which can turn all things into joy.
As we go to confession this lent, we ask the Good and Loving God to show us that we are His sons and daughters truly loved by Him. We have already inherited a treasure that will grow stronger in heaven. We are His sons and daughters, not slaves. Let us live this way.