In the parable of the prodigal son, we find a rags-to-riches story altogether different than the one we are used to. The story does not tell of a young man who must build everything for himself; it describes a young man who must accept everything offered to him. In seizing everything that his father has stored up for him and allotting it as he sees fit, the son loses everything. Only in this position of beggarliness does he recognize the riches that he has lost in separating himself from his father: his independence, his happiness, his daily bread. The son begins his long journey home committed to the plan of becoming his father’s servant. Instead, his father asks him to accept immeasurably more than he could earn, most of all the father’s own love.

How beautiful that we are all prodigal sons and daughters of God the Father, and yet how challenging. We all love to make, do, and feel useful. It is much harder to receive, accept, and acknowledge our littleness. God asks precisely this humility of us in asking us to let go of the small projects that we cling to so tightly and to open our hands to the greater and more perfect works that He has planned. May this Lent be a journey towards accepting the infinite happiness and love that our Father wants for us even more than we can want for ourselves.