Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
As we gather this Fourth Sunday of Lent—Laetare Sunday, a day of rejoicing amid our Lenten journey—the Gospel presents us with the well-known parable of the Prodigal Son. Yet, perhaps it would be more fitting to call it the parable of Two Lost Sons (Luke 15:1-3, 11-32). For both sons, though different in their struggles, reveal something of the human heart—and of God’s boundless mercy.
The younger son is visibly lost. Restless, impatient, he demands his inheritance and sets off for a distant land, chasing freedom but finding only emptiness and ruin. In his desperation, he remembers home—not necessarily out of faith, but because it is the last refuge he can imagine. What he could not have foreseen is the extraordinary welcome waiting for him: his father, watching the horizon, runs to embrace him. Before the son can finish his confession, he is clothed, fed, and celebrated. The father, breaking with cultural expectations, acts not with judgment but with a compassion more akin to a mother’s tender love.
And yet, the older son is lost, too—in a quieter, perhaps more dangerous way. He is dutiful, hard-working, but his heart has grown cold. His resentment toward his brother and even his father blinds him to the love that was his all along. “All these years I have slaved for you,” he says, revealing how joyless duty can become when it is disconnected from love. Yeats once wrote, “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart”—a warning we see embodied in the elder son.
Both sons needed their father to come out to them. The younger son allowed himself to be found. But the parable leaves us wondering about the elder son—does he step into the celebration, or does he remain outside, clutching his anger like a shield?
In this story, Jesus reveals the heart of God. The Father who runs toward the broken. The Father who pleads with the hardened. The Father who refuses to give up on either son. This is the God who journeys toward us all, because—truth be told—we are all lost in some way. Lost in regrets, pride, resentment, selfishness, or simply in the busyness of life that distracts us from the Father’s love.
The good news is this: the moment we even think about turning toward God, we find He is already running toward us.
As we look ahead to the great celebration of Easter—the feast of the Resurrection—we are reminded that resurrection is not just a future hope but a present reality. In the parable, the father says of his son, “He was dead and has come back to life.” Every return to God, every moment of reconciliation, every act of mercy is a taste of resurrection. It is the passage from death to life, from isolation to community, from guilt to loving acceptance.
This week, I invite you to reflect: Where am I in this story? Am I the younger son, longing to return but afraid of what I’ll find? Am I the elder son, keeping score, standing outside the celebration? Or am I ready to receive and embody the compassion of the Father—becoming for others a sign of mercy and new life?
May this Lent be for each of us a journey home—a resurrection of the heart. And may we have the courage to take that first step, trusting that our God is already running to meet us.
In Christ’s peace,
Msgr. Cuong M. Pham