Angelus Address March 27, 2022 Dear brothers and sisters, happy Sunday, buongiorno! The Gospel for this Sunday’s Liturgy recounts the so-called Parable of the Prodigal Son (cf. Lk 15:11-32). It leads us to the heart of God, who always forgives compassionately and tenderly. Always, God always forgives. We are the ones who tire of asking for forgiveness, but he always forgives. It [the parable] tells us that God is a Father who not only welcomes us back, but rejoices and throws a feast for his son who has returned home after squandering all his possessions. We are that son, and it is moving to think about how much the Father always loves us and waits for us. But there is also the elder son in the same parable who manifested his resentment in front of this Father. It can put us into crisis as well. In fact, this elder son is also within us and we are tempted to take his side, at least in part: he had always done his duty, he had not left home, and so he becomes indignant on seeing the Father embracing his [other] son again after having behaved so badly. He protests and says: “I have served you for so many years and never disobeyed your command”. Instead, for “this son of yours”, you go so far as to celebrate! (cf. vv. 29-30) “I don’t understand you!” This is the indignation of the elder son. These words illustrate the elder son’s problem. He bases his relationship with his Father solely on pure observance of commands, on a sense of duty. This could also be our problem, the problem among ourselves and with God: losing sight that he is a Father, and living a distant religion, made of prohibitions and duties. And the consequence of this distance is rigidity towards our neighbour whom we no longer see as a brother or sister. In fact, in the parable, the elder son does not say my brother to the Father. No, he says that son of yours, as if to say: he is not my bother. In the end, he risks remaining outside of the hosue. In fact, the text says:: “he refused to go in” (v.28), because the other one was there. Pope Francis
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