Have you failed at certain things in your life and done so miserably? Do you wonder how God could ever love the likes of you? Do you worry about your eternal destiny because you realize that nothing unholy can ever live in God’s holy Presence and that all human beings, because of our sin-sickness, can never be holy by our own power or doing? Are you afraid of God because you have failed to live faithfully as his image-bearer and therefore failed to please him? You should fear God because God created you and has the power to destroy you forever.

But take heart and hope. God’s love and justice for you have given you a second chance and reason not to fear him with knee-knocking terror. God has dealt with our sins on the cross and assured us that this forgiveness is real by raising Christ from the dead. Saint Peter Chrysologus, bishop and doctor of the Church, testifies powerfully to the Father’s great love, mercy, and grace toward us in the sermon below by teaching how the Father’s love is illustrated in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15.11-32). Read it, reflect on it, savor it, and most importantly act upon it in ways that demonstrate you have given your life to Christ so that you too may experience the Father’s great love for you made known in Jesus Christ our Lord’s life, Death, and Resurrection. Christ is our only hope. There is no other way, no other hope, no other chance for us to enjoy life, health, and wholeness with God, either in this world or in the new creation to come. All are invited. Are you wise enough to accept the invitation?

For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

“I will break away and return to my father.” The prodigal who spoke these words was lying prostrate on the ground. He has pondered his fall, taken stock of his ruin, found himself mired in sin, and so he exclaims: “I will break away and return to my father.” What is the basis for such hope, such assurance, and such confidence on his part? The very fact that it is his father to whom he will return. “‘I have forfeited my sonship,”’ he tells himself, ‘‘but he has not forfeited his fatherhood. There is no need for a stranger to intercede with a father: it is the father’s own affection which intervenes and supplicates in the depths of his heart. His paternal instinct yearns to beget his child anew through forgiveness. Therefore, guilty though I am, J will return to my father.” And the father, on sighting his son, immediately covers over his sin, He prefers his role as father to his role as judge. At once, he transforms the sentence into pardon, for he desires his son’s return, not his ruin. He “threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him.’’ This is how the father judges and corrects: he gives a kiss in place of a beating. The power of love takes no account of sin; that is why the Father pardons his child’s guilt with a kiss and covers it over with an embrace. The father does not reveal his child’s sin, neither does he stigmatize his son; he nurses his wounds in such a way that they leave no scar or dishonor whatever. “Happy is the one whose fault is taken away.”

If the past behavior of this youngster has filled us with disgust and if the prodigal’s escapade has shocked us, we must ourselves be careful not to become estranged from such a Father. The sight alone of the Father suffices to put sin to flight, to keep transgression away, and to repel every kind of evil and temptation. But if we have drifted away from the Father, if we have squandered all his goods by a dissolute life, if we have happened to commit some sin or misdeed, if we have fallen into the bottomless pit of impiety and into absolute ruin, we must finally arise and return to such a Father, encouraged by such an example.

“His father caught sight of him and was deeply moved. He ran out to meet him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him.’’ Now I ask what place there is here for despair, what occasion for an excuse or for any kind of fear. Unless perhaps we dread meeting the Father and his kiss makes us afraid; unless perhaps we believe that it is only to get hold of him and take revenge rather than to welcome and forgive him that the Father comes and takes his son by the hand, that he presses him to his heart and embraces him.

But this life-destroying thought, this enemy of our salvation, is completely disarmed by the words that follow: ‘The father said to his servants: ‘Quick! bring out the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. Take the fatted calf and kill it. Let us eat and celebrate because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life. He was lost and is found.’ ”’ After hearing this, can we still put off our own return to the Father?

Sermons 2-3; PL 52, 188-189, 192