I will get up and go to my Father and shall say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
The youngest son in our Gospel for today has gotten himself into a real pickle. He thought he could be free of his father and his father's estate and all the work it entailed, so he demanded his inheritance and left. His father would not have had to give in to his demands, but he knew the young man needed to learn a tough lesson, and that is exactly what happens.
The young man squanders all his money and ends up starving and caring for pigs, about the worst position a young Jew could end up in. The young man sees his predicament and recognizes how good he really had it at home. In fact, his father's servants are much better off than he is at this point. He decides that he will go home, confess his sin, and ask to be a servant to his father because he knows he is not worthy to be a son.
In this acclamation, we are invited to make the young man's words of repentance our own. We are invited to recognize that, like the young man, we have gone away from our Father, God, to follow our own paths, and we must repent and return. The young man received a welcome and forgiveness beyond his wildest imaginings, and so will we when we get up, return to our Father, confess our sins, and find ourselves surrounded by love.
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