MARCH 30, 2025

We grumble sometimes against authority, don’t we? Whether it’s the boss, the government, our parents, whomever. We’ve all been there! We’ve grumbled when someone has us doing something we otherwise wouldn’t want to be doing. God’s not immune from our grumbling, is He? Sometimes we grumble against God, too. From today’s Gospel, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, both brothers grumbled against their father. But one had an epiphany that changed his perspective. He went from grumbling to gratitude.

He realized that his father didn’t really ask much. And what the father asked was for his own benefit, and out of love. This is also true in our own relationship with God, our Father. Sometimes, although what He asks of us is for our own benefit and out of love, we sometimes grumble.

Grumbling and agitation with God is an ongoing pandemic of great proportions among Catholics. There are more lapsed and former Catholics than there are actual Catholics, and it’s not even close. So often, feeling like a slave, many have ignored what God asks of us in His Church and have simply walked away, just like the one son did.

But Christianity is a story of Reconciliation! The story of the Prodigal Son is our story. Reconciliation is at the heart of our story too! In Baptism, we’re made sons and daughters of God. When we sin, we’re like the Prodigal Son - we grumble and quit our Father’s house. We squander our inheritance by trying to live without Him.

Then - suffering from the effects of sin - we cut ourselves off from God and His grace. Although, when we sin, all is not lost! It is still possible for us, like the Prodigal Son, to come to our senses and make our way back to the Father.

You see, in ways great and small, sin harms the relationship we have with God. It affects our relationship as sons and daughters of God, our Father. And only God can restore the relationship that we have spurned. We HAVE TO go to Him!

We may have grumbled, thinking we were slaves to the authority of the Father, like the elder brother in today’s parable. But we’re not. We are only slaves to sin, if we choose to ignore God. God can free us from the slavery to sin that causes us - like the Prodigal Son - to see God not as our Father but as our master, one we serve as slaves.

God does not want slaves. He doesn’t hold us captive to His authority. We are free. God doesn’t want us to grumble and blindly follow Him without any freedom. He loves us and adores us as His children. Like the father in today’s Gospel, He longs to call each of us “My son, My daughter.” God longs for us to share in His life. God lovingly longs to tell us: “Everything I have is yours.”

We may not always get on well with God, let’s face it - as humans, we’re prone to grumbling. But we should always go to God as our loving Father, not as our boss. We should have a personal, intimate relationship with Him. Just as any child has with an affectionate and loving parent. And when we fall into that grumbling like the younger brother, we too can have that life-changing epiphany and pivot from grumbling to gratitude. Because our Father is the most gracious, generous, and benevolent Father that there ever was.

Oremus pro invicem - Let’s pray for each other!

Fr. Ryan P. Brady
Pastor of St. Christina Parish