Throughout the Lenten season, we’ll be posting reflections for holy days and Sundays. These reflections are taken from this year’s Lenten reflection booklet, Return to me with all your heart, which includes all-new reflections written by Ralph McCloud, and from previously published reflections, like the one below, written by Allison Blay for Everything is grace: Reflections for Lent 2016.
Click here to see all reflections as they are posted as well as links to other Lenten resources on our Lent 2025 webpage.
by Allison Blay
originally published in 2016
Joshua 5:9a, 10-12 | 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 | Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:2)
This is the complaint of the Pharisees and scribes about Jesus. In response he tells them a series of parables, including the one in today’s gospel, the parable of the lost son: the story of the younger son who asks for and then squanders his father’s inheritance, of his father’s joyful response at his return, and of the older son’s jealousy of the father’s extravagant welcome. Many of us might find it comforting to identify with the younger son in this story, trusting that even if we make poor choices and misuse God’s gifts, we can still be welcomed home joyfully. A few of us might even identify with the father, as we think of loved ones in our lives we would gladly welcome home if given the chance.
But how many of us identify with the jealous older brother? How many of us begrudge God’s generous mercy towards those who have made huge mistakes? How many of us realize that we, too, are called to model mercy? Certainly ours is not a society that tends towards mercy. Those who are poor are often blamed for their lot. Those with any kind of prison record may struggle to find work and acceptance. And those on death row continue to be executed in the name of “justice.”
The jealous scribes and Pharisees are challenged to see themselves in this parable; perhaps we are as well. Perhaps we are called to recognize how Christ can make everything new, as our second reading says. Perhaps we are asked to let go of the “disgrace of Egypt” as God did for the Israelites in our first reading. Our merciful God invites us to let go of jealous condemnation, our whiny “It’s not fair!” attitude, and enter the banquet hall in celebration, mercy and acceptance.
For reflection
- With whom do I identify in the story of the lost son?
- In what ways am I called to recognize my own need for mercy, and to share that mercy with others?
- What brothers and sisters might I be asked to welcome and break bread with today?
Click here to see more resources for prayer, study and action this Lenten season.
>> Join the Pax Christi USA community on Monday, March 24, for the third of this year’s weekly Lenten prayer services over Zoom. Click here for more information and to register.
Allison Blay is co-founder of Friends Across the Ages, an outreach program for nursing home residents, and an educator in the fields of Catholic Social Teaching and scripture.
Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk and Maga, You offend Heaven and all of the moral teaching of the Great Religions of the world, and the call to Love Your Neighbor. Your world of exploitation, greed for the privileged, power politics, show your ignorance of the call and a violation of the oath you have taken for the Office of the Presidency, as stated in the Preamble of the US Constituition, “We the People of the US, in Order to form a more Perfect Union, establish Justice, … promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty … establish this Constitution for the US.” Your actions are like the Prodigal Son before the son realizes the bankruptcy of his ways.