Fourth Sunday of Lent ‘C’

Traditionally, the Fourth Sunday of Lent is called Rejoice Sunday. Anticipating Easter joy, today’s readings invite us to rejoice by being reconciled with God through repentance and the confession of our sins and by celebrating our coming home to be with our loving and forgiving God.

In the First Reading, the Chosen People of God are portrayed as celebrating, for the first time in their own land, the feast of their freedom, by using wheat that had grown in the Promised Land.

In today’s Responsorial Psalm, a rejoicing Psalmist invites us, “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.”

In the Second Reading, St. Paul invites the Corinthian Christian community to rejoice because Jesus has reconciled them with God by his suffering and death.

Today’s Gospel celebrates the joy of the prodigal son on his “homecoming” to rediscover his father’s forgiving and overflowing love. It is also the story of the rejoicing of a loving and forgiving father who celebrates the return of his prodigal son by throwing a big party in his honor, a banquet celebrating the reconciliation of the son with his father, his family, his community and his God. At the same time, by presenting a self-righteous elder brother, the parable invites us to avoid self-justification by imitating the repentant younger brother. Let us admit the truth that we are an assembly of sinful people, ready to receive God's forgiveness and to experience Jesus’ Personal Presence in the Holy Eucharist as a loving and forgiving God.

Let us return to our Heavenly Father with repentant hearts; as prodigal children, we are facing a spiritual famine all around us.

At every Mass, we come to our loving Heavenly Father’s house as prodigal children acknowledging that we have sinned (“I confess to Almighty God...”). In the Offertory, we offer ourselves back to the Father, and this is the moment of our surrendering our sinful lives to God our Father. At the Consecration, we hear God’s invitation through Jesus: “… this is My Body, which will be given up for you...; this is My Blood… which will be poured out for you…” (it means. “All I have is yours”). In Holy Communion, we participate in the banquet of reconciliation, restoring our full relationship with God and our brothers and sisters.