I Will Get Up and Go to My Father

“But when he came to himself, he said ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise, and go to my father, and say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.’

And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”

-Luke 15:17-20

On one of the last Sundays before Lent, the Byzantine Church commemorates the Sunday of the Prodigal Son. We are reminded by this that we are living in sin, and are therefore perishing with hunger, as sin cannot satisfy our desires. In doing so, she urges us to “come to ourselves”, to come to our senses, and to get up and return to our Father.

Christ tells us in this parable exactly what we can expect when we make this move of repentance. Our Father sees us from a long way off, as he has been standing there waiting for us. And before we can ever cross that great distance, if we even can, he has compassion, and runs to us with affection and mercy.

If Lent is a time of repentance, the parable of the Prodigal Son shows us what this repentance looks like. It is not that we, through our own efforts, traverse the distance to our Father as he watches and waits to see if we make it. Nor is it that we remain in our misery, but merely say the right prayers, and unlock a distant and cold forgiveness from our Father from afar.

We simply begin. We make the smallest and most halting move to repent, and our Father runs to us. We take a couple steps and he is already there.

This parable encapsulates why Lent is often called in Eastern Christianity “bright sadness”. We have the sorrow and sadness for our sins of the prodigal son. Yet it is bright, and filled with hope and the joy of our Father, because through our prayers, fasting, almsgiving, and the holy mystery of Confession that we make those steps toward him, and he embraces us.

Only when we realize this can we say, as we sing at Vespers for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son,

“I will arise, I will return to my compassionate Father. He will accept my tears. I fall down before Him crying: ‘In your tender love for all people receive me as one of your servants, and save me.’”

Venmo: @stmarybyzbnj