Sharing the Father’s Joy

Many of us have heard this parable of the prodigal son, but there are many minor details that often go unseen and unrecognized. After this young son, who wasted all that he had received from his father, makes his journey back home, the father receives him with great joy and throws a banquet, a party for everyone to celebrate.

He mentions, “His son was lost, and is now found, was dead and is alive.”

Truly, this reaction that the father has, this joy that he wants everyone to share in is what happens behind the scenes in the sacrament of confession every time someone confesses. How do we know that? Jesus says:

“Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  (Luke 15:10)

In repentance, when we come back to Jesus after being away for a while, not only is God happy, but the saints and angels in heaven rejoice, they throw a party. Why?

When we come back, it’s not like the Lord is looking at us like? What are you doing here? Who are you? Look who showed up?

Because we were once lost and dead in sin, now we are found in the father’s house and alive again in the father’s love.

There’s a detail in this story that’s a little sad. There was an older brother who stayed home. Worked. Followed the rules. But when the younger son decided to come back after his bout of betrayal, he couldn’t stand it.

Seeing the banquet, seeing everyone happy, seeing everyone celebrate him—he couldn’t bring himself to be happy like everyone else.

He couldn’t bring himself to share in the joy that the father had.

He couldn’t rejoice on the fact that his brother is alive and he’s back.

All he could focus on is how little he was celebrated as always being around.

And the shocking thing in this gospel that I think I realized for the first time was the fact that the older son, couldn’t bring himself to go in and enter the banquet.

The Gospel says, “He refused to go in!”

And as sad as this sentence stands in the story, I believe many of us have found ourselves in the same situations. Unable to rejoice with God and whom he has blessed. Why?

Because, we say, why them? Why not me?

Or they’re not good people, I’ve done good and stayed faithful, why not me?

Stuck in our bitterness and resentment, we can’t find ourselves rejoicing not only with the person, but also unable to join in the joy of God , the angels, and the saints.

In our liturgy, in the evening prayers, we recognize and confess saying, “O God, who does not desire that a sinner should die, but rather that he should repent and live.”

We not only say that for other people who are far from God, but we say that for ourselves who might be around God but far from him in our hearts.

Knowing that God wants to bring us all back in his home. We must be careful to hold this bitterness & resentment that it prevents us from being joyful in heaven.

Heaven could potentially be filled with people we can’t stand.

If you can’t handle God blessing the people you can’t stand, then you might not enjoy heaven— you might not want to go in either.

So today, as we stand in the Church—already near the Father’s house—let us ask for the grace to be healed of this older-brother spirit: the resentment that keeps score, the jealousy that compares, the judgment that refuses to call someone “my brother,” and the bitterness that cannot rejoice when the lost are found.

Because the tragedy of the older brother is not that he was outside the house—he was always close. The tragedy is that he would not go in. And that can happen to us too: we can be physically present in prayer, in the Liturgy, around holy things—and still be far away in our hearts.

So let us take this Gospel as a mirror. If there is someone we struggle to forgive, someone we are angry God is blessing, someone whose repentance we secretly doubt—today Christ is inviting us: Go in. Enter the joy of the Father. Join the feast. Rejoice with heaven.

And if you feel far from God, if you’ve been away for a while, if you think you’ve gone too far—this Gospel is also for you: the Father is not waiting with a lecture, but running with mercy. Come home through repentance. Come home through confession. And come to the banquet the Father prepares—Christ Himself in the Holy Eucharist—who makes the dead alive and restores the lost to the Father’s house.

May the Lord deliver us from bitterness and fill us with the joy of heaven, so that when one sinner repents—whether it is me  or someone else—we will be able to say with the angels and saints: “Rejoice, for the lost is found.” Amen.