In the classic tale of Pinocchio we are told of a young man made of wood, but made in love, who desperately desires to be more fully human.  He runs away from home and seeks his fortune out in the world.  His so-called friends lead him to an island where he gives in to his selfish whims and slowly becomes a donkey.  On the island there are many young boys who have forgotten who they were and through their foolishness and selfishness they have become less than human.  In the gospel of Luke we meet a young man who thinks, as many young people are prone to thinking, that he will find a more fulfilling life out in the world than among his family.  He takes his part of the family trust and “set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.”  How often have we squandered what our family of origin and our family of faith has given to us?  When we choose our own selfish ways over the will of God as mediated by our family and the Church, we often end up throwing away much of what truly gives us life.  The world so often offers us only illusions and elaborate games that end up in our forgetting who we truly are.  When we have forgotten our true gifts and graces we end up bankrupt, both financially and morally, and find that we are alone in our suffering.  Slowly we become something less than human and we find ourselves enslaved to sin.  Scripture tells us that everyone who follows the path of sin becomes a slave to sin.  Sin at first seems to be a true exercise of freedom but we quickly lose our freedom and fall into an enslavement to “a life of dissipation”.  In order to recover what was lost through sin we must begin a journey home.  Lent is our journey from sin to God’s grace and mercy.  It is a journey that takes us through moments of penance in order that we may remember who we truly are.

     As the journey of this young man leads him back home we learn that, “While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.”  The young man is still a long way off because there is yet penance to accomplish in his life.  He must remove the stench of the pig farm that he has been living in and begin to remember anew who he truly is.  He still sees his worth only as a servant.  Even while he is on this journey of penance and return the father sees him and is filled with compassion.

     We are told that the father “caught sight of him”.  This seeing is not merely a matter of the gift of good eyesight on the father’s part but rather a gift for compassion and mercy.  While he is still “a long way off” the father sees him in his heart with compassion and mercy.  He doesn’t see him in his shame and degradation nor as a slave in his guilt but rather he sees him as his son that was lost, he sees him with his eyes of mercy and love as he once was in glory.  The father can only see his son as he remembers him, with the eyes of his heart and through the lens of his love.  All the father sees is that the son that he had thought was lost has been found again and has been restored to life.  The father runs to the son and restores his lost humanity upon him.  He dresses him in a fine robe, places a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet and restores the dignity that was lost in his sinfulness.  The son is expecting to be treated according to his sin and to be punished by the father but what he encounters is grace and mercy.  The journey home that leads us through penance is not intended to punish us for our sins but rather to prepare us for grace and to live again in the dignity of the children of God.  Penance helps to purify us and wash us clean from our sin.

     What we have lost because of sin God the Father retrieves and restores to us.  Reconciliation leads to restoration that we might again know that we are the children of God.  The journey of repentance leads us to a certainty of the Father’s love.  The elder son questions the father’s love because he still believes that he must earn the father’s love and that nothing is ever enough to please the father.

     During this time of Lent we make our own journey of repentance, of remembering who we are, of confessing our foolishness and sin and of experiencing the grace and mercy of God the Father.  May we be restored to glory through our encounter with grace and emerge with a greater certainty of God’s love for us all.