Good afternoon. Today, just three days before my third anniversary as a deacon in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I celebrate a different kind of milestone: “coming full cycle.” Who here knows what I mean by “coming full cycle”? Here is a hint: I was ordained THREE years ago. Ready for the answer? I was ordained in Year C. . . Year A. . . Year B. . . and now we are in Year. . . C - “coming full cycle.” Specifically, I preached on these same readings at my Mass of Thanksgiving. Now, I know what you are thinking and the answers are “No” and “Yes”. No, I did not dust off my homily from three years ago and tweaked it for today. Yes, I will be handing out my Ordination prayer cards after Mass but. . . you will have to come and say “Hi” to me if you want a prayer card (perhaps even ask me a question about my 5-year experience in Diaconal Formation). Think about it.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us the parable of the prodigal son, a story that we are all familiar with and, depending on where we are in our own life and in our faith and spiritual journeys, we identify either with the father, the younger son, or the older son. Perhaps, we identify with one of the servants who witnessed the whole drama unfold before them. Or we might even identify with one of the unsung good samaritans who helped the younger son on his journey home because there is no way the younger son could have made it back home from the “distant country” if someone had not helped him along the way. As I reflected on this parable of the prodigal son, I am struck by two verses. The first is verse 18, in which the younger son thought to himself: “. . .I shall get up and go to my father. . .” I call this the “desire of the heart.” The second is verse 20, in which the younger son “got up and went back to his father. . .” I call this the “act of the will.” As we can see with the younger son, true conversion occurs in our lives when we move from the “desire of the heart” to the “act of the will.”
Now, who here, like me, has been following “The Bible in the Year” podcast, from Ascension Press, with Fr. Mike Schmitz? And who here, also like me, is trying to listen to the podcast daily but find yourselves playing catch-up and listening to multiple episodes in one day just to keep pace? I was stuck in the “Desert Wanderings” period of the timeline when Fr. Mike was already two days into the “Conquest & Judges” time period. More specifically, I was stuck on the Day 78 episode, titled “The Song of Moses”. The good news is, I finally finished listening to the “Day 78 - The Song of Moses” episode this past Wednesday and, get this, it was exactly what I needed to hear. Gosh, I tell you what, God’s plan is so much better than any of my plans will ever be and His timing is absolutely perfect! But we all know that already, am I right?
What struck me about Day 78 is Fr. Mike’s reflection on Psalm 118:18. Reflecting on verse 18 - “The LORD chastised me harshly, but did not hand me over to death.” - Fr. Mike said that God promises us this (and I am paraphrasing here): “I’ll let you have what you’ve chosen (something other than me). . . but I am not going to abandon you. . . [however] that something other than me will let you down. It will actually cause you pain, but I will allow you to experience that pain so that you can KNOW how good I am, so that you can know that you do not want this brokenness and that what you want is me.” When I heard this, it felt like a lance had pierced my heart. Let us reflect on this for a moment here - “I will allow you to experience that pain so that you can KNOW how good I am.” God desires us to be His. He does not want us to walk away from Him because He knows that we would eventually fall to the Evil One through temptations and sins. And yet, God allows all these things (including allowing us to choose something other than Him) because He loves us so much. He desires us to love Him but only of our own freewill - just as Christ, of his own freewill, chose to be obedient to his Father, even to death on the Cross for you and me, for our salvation, so that we might be reconciled with God.
My sisters and brothers in Christ, is this not what the father allows his younger son to do in today’s Gospel parable of the prodigal son? The father never wanted his younger son to “set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation. . . [only to find] himself in dire need. . . [after] he had freely spent everything.” Yet, in his great love and mercy, the father allowed the younger son to do just that. The parable goes on to tell us that when the younger son hits rock bottom, he realizes how good he had it when he was living at home with his father. Just listen to what he thought to himself: “. . . [how] many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food to eat, but here am I, dying from hunger.” In fact, “he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any.” But you know what the worst part of all is? The younger son believes in the lie of the Evil One - that his actions have caused him to lose his identity as a beloved son of the father, saying: “I no longer deserve to be called your son.” You see, my sisters and brothers in Christ, the world that the younger son desired so much to be a part of; the world that he was willing to hurt his father so that he can run off and be a part of it; that same world, in the end, stripped him of everything, including the one thing that is most precious of all: his dignity as a beloved son of his father, and then it casted him aside, far from the love of his father.
Last Saturday, I attended the Ordination Mass where Bishop Joe Vasquez ordained sixteen (16) men to the Holy Order of the Diaconate for the Diocese of Austin. From the time I vested before Mass to the entrance procession to the Rite of Ordination to the fraternal hug to the recessional, followed by pictures with my fellow Vietnamese deacons after Mass, God reminded me once again that, despite all of my own weaknesses and shortcomings, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ not only calls me to serve him and his Church, he pours forth his grace upon me to strengthen me to be his deacon. Being at the Ordination Mass brought back memories of when I laid prostrate on the floor of St. William Catholic Church, three years ago, and wept during the Litany of Supplication. And, then, I heard God’s voice say: “Let’s get to work, my son.” You see, the world does not get to dictate our story. It cannot and must not. If it did, then I would not have become a Catholic fourteen (14) years ago; I would not have entered Diaconal Formation eight (8) years ago; and I would not have been ordained a deacon three (3) years ago. (A real quick side note : Men, the Diocese is currently accepting applications for the class of 2028 so come see me after Mass and let us chat about discerning God’s call to Diaconal Formation)
My sisters and brothers in Christ, it is God our Creator who is the author of our life’s story and, thanks be to God, like the prodigal son, our story does not have to end with us being cast aside by a world that has fallen into darkness because God is love and his mercy endures forever. This is reason enough for us to rejoice on this Fourth Sunday of Lent - or Laetare Sunday - because Jesus is the Paschal Lamb who died on the Cross for our salvation. Christ is “the light [that] shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). In faith and with conviction, we cry out and say, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” Thanks be to God, we have much to rejoice because, as Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians, our Father in heaven does not count our trespasses against us. Rather, He gives us many “second chances”, during our lifetime, to return to Him so that we may be reconciled to Him in Christ. Now, I want to emphasize “during our lifetime” because we will all stand in Judgment before the heavenly throne of Jesus Christ our Lord after we have passed on from this world to the next. Therefore, we must do our part and cooperate with Jesus - not later, but now.
Like the younger son in the parable, we must have courage to move from the “desire of the heart” to the “act of the will”. In other words, we must go from “. . .I shall get up and go to my father. . .” to “he got up and went back to his father. . .” For us to go from “desire of the heart” to “act of the will” requires belief, faith, and trust in God’s goodness; vulnerability; and our openness to receive His love, mercy, and forgiveness in our hearts. Most of all, we must not believe the lies of the Evil One because, the truth is, when we return to God with a humble and contrite heart, we will find our Father waiting for us. The younger son was filled with trepidation during his journey home, no doubt about it. But this was what awaited him upon his return home: “[while] he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.” Our loving and merciful Father yearns for the day when we would return to Him, to His love. Therefore, let us repent and believe in His love for us. This is the Good News that gives us reason to rejoice.
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