Discover the Gospel of Mass of the 4th Sunday of Lent
Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke
4th Lent Sunday – Year C
At that time, publicans and sinners all came to Jesus to listen to him. The Pharisees and the Recriminant Scribes against him: “This man is good welcome to sinners, and he eats with them!” Then Jesus said this parable to them: “A man had two sons. The youngest said to his father, “Father, give me the part of fortune that comes back to me.” And the father shared his property for them. A few days later, the youngest gathered everything he had, and left for a distant country where he dilapidated his fortune by leading a life of disorder. He had spent everything when a great famine came in this country, and he began to be in need. He went to commit to a resident of this country, who sent him to his fields to keep the pigs. He would have liked to fill his stomach with the pods ate the pigs, but no one gave him nothing. So he returned to himself and said to himself: “How many workers of my father have bread in abundance, and I, here, I die of hunger! I will get up, I will go to my father, and I will say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and to you. I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Treat me as one of your workers.” He went to his father. As he was still far away, his father saw him and was seized of compassion; He ran to throw himself around his neck and covered him with kisses. The son said to him: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and towards you. I am no longer worthy of being called your son.” But the father said to his servants: “Quickly, bring the most beautiful garment to dress him, put a ring on the finger and sandals on the feet, go get the fatty calf, kill him, eat and feast, because my son was dead, and it was dead, and it was lost, and it was lost, found. Now the eldest son was in the fields. When he returned and was near the house, he heard music and dances. Calling one of the servants, he was inquired of what was going on. He replied, “Your brother arrived, and your father killed the fatty calf, because he found your brother in good health.” Then the eldest son got angry, and he refused to enter. His father came out to beg him. But he replied to his father: “So many years ago that I have been at your service without ever having transgressed your orders, and you have never given me a kid to feast with my friends. But when your son that here came after having devoured your property with prostitutes, you had the fatty calf killed for him!” The father replied: “You, my child, are always with me, and everything that is mine is yours. You had to feast and rejoice; for your brother that here was dead, and he came back to life; he was lost, and he is found!” »»
*Chapter 15, verses 1 to 3 and 11 to 32.
Other readings: Joshua’s book (Chapter 5, Verses 9 and 10 to 12); Psalm 33 (34); Second letter from Saint Paul to Corinth Christians (Chapter 5, Verses 17 to 21).
The due or the donation?
Françoise Thérizolsmember of the Christian community of the Notre-Dame-des-Anges chapel (Paris, Vie):
The story begins on the heritage register, the youngest asking his father the part which is due to him as one of his sons. Starting on a foreign land, now famine occurs: it is then the forfeiture (it has nothing more and which is it still?). It is here that the reversal happens and arouses, by vital necessity, the return to his father. But nothing goes as planned. Because the father, against all odds, shows his son an overflowing affection and, not even letting him formulate his repentance, he already restored him in his dignity as a son (the most beautiful clothing, the ring, the sandals).
So, was these two given? To the wishing father who has always been waiting for his son as a missing part of himself? To the son who believed himself deposed and who is celebrated by his father as one of his beloved sons?
