The Father and the Sons

Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

Bishop Robert Barron

Spirituality, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality:christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2010

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The parable of the prodigal son is a portrait of God's gracious love and two negative responses to that love. Both sons, in their own ways, indicate the disposition of the soul in estrangement from God.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Cardinal Francis George. I invite you to join me for the next two minutes to reflect
0:09.0	with Father Robert Barron on the Word of God, which is the Word on Fire. Word on Fire Catholic
0:14.2	Ministries is a non-profit ministry at the forefront of Catholic evangelization, using
0:18.9	new media to spread the faith and every continent. Father Barron challenges us to open our hearts
0:23.9	to the Word on Fire, which is God's Word of Love for each of us. If our hearts are open,
0:29.5	the Lord can change and transform us so that we might speak with love about the one who
0:34.6	is love. The global benefactors of Word on Fire with the support of the Archdiocese of
0:39.4	Chicago now present Word on Fire. Peace be with you. Friends, we have the great privilege
0:49.2	this weekend of hearing Jesus' most magnificent parable. The greatest story ever told, the
0:57.4	tale of the prodigal son. Now, I know we've all heard this story many times, but we're still
1:06.1	perhaps despite ourselves moved by it, drawn into its power. Why should this be so? I think
1:15.4	it's because it speaks so eloquently of who God is and how we get into right relationship
1:22.4	to Him. As I've been saying throughout land, both these themes are on display. Who is God?
1:27.8	What's the right idea of God? And then secondly, how do we get in our right relation to Him?
1:34.4	It's important to attend to the opening lines of this passage before Jesus gets to the parable
1:42.5	itself. We hear that tax collectors and sinners were drawing close to Jesus and that Pharisees
1:51.6	and scribes were complaining about this. Now, keep those two groups in mind. Jesus had, we know,
2:00.0	a magnetic power, especially for those who felt excluded from the love of God, but He also stirred
2:10.0	up resentment precisely by the very graciousness of His style. The parable we're going to hear is a
2:17.3	portrait of Jesus and of these two groups. In other words, it's a portrait of divine love and two
2:26.4	typical responses to it. The response of the sinner and of the self-righteously religious.
2:35.5	Let's look now at the younger son who symbolizes the sinner, the one in open rebellion against God.
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