There are certain movies I could watch over and over for the rest of my life and not get sick of them. One of those is “Field of Dreams.” This movie captures the spiritual path of a man trying to follow a power greater than himself who ends up doing some seemingly crazy things, above all, plowing under his cornfield in order to build a baseball diamond. There are so many great scenes in this movie, and of course there is the oft-quoted line: “If you build it, he will come.”
If you haven’t seen this movie before, watch it tonight! I promise, you won’t be disappointed. One of the scenes in the movie that really stands out to me is when Ray, the main character, meets a younger version of his father on the baseball diamond. Many years before this, Ray had had a falling out with his dad and they had been distant from each other for the rest of their lives. But in this moment, Ray gets a glimpse of his dad as he was in his younger years, full of life, hope and joy, playing baseball and enjoying himself. In this younger version of Ray’s dad I see a symbol of redemption, a cleansing away of all the baggage of his later years which separated him from his son. And by this point in the movie, Ray himself has also undergone a type of redemption, as he learns to take risks and trust the guidance of the messages he’s getting, despite the scorn of some of the people in his life.
So there they are, father and son, with not a trace of baggage between them in that moment. Ray asks his dad if he wants to play catch, and his dad accepts. And they enjoy a game of catch on this magical baseball field which seems to be a meeting point between heaven and earth, built in a cornfield in Iowa. There is something really beautiful in seeing father and son reunited in love and friendship, and it chokes me up every time I watch it. Maybe it does (or will) for you, too.
That theme of reconciliation isn’t just a theme woven through all of the Bible, it is the story of the Bible. It is a story of love between the Father and all of humanity. And for all of us, this story has been fraught with many twists and turns, missteps where we try to find happiness and fulfillment apart from the Father who loves us, sometimes spurning Him and making a mess of our lives in the process. But the glorious reality that we recognize with faith is that the Father never gives up on us! No matter how far we have fallen or what we have allowed to come between us and Him, there is always, always hope for reconciliation.
Consider what we heard in the first reading for this Sunday. God’s people in the Southern Kingdom known as Judah had been wandering far from the Lord God. Over and over He sent prophets to warn them of their ways, but they wouldn’t listen. They rejected the love of the Lord God and went after the false gods of the nations, and eventually this idolatry caught up to them. The Holy City of Jerusalem was destroyed and they were carried off to Babylon and held captive there for 70 years.
But God never forgot His beloved people. Even after the horrible experience of exile they had to undergo, God never abandoned them. The exile was a physical manifestation of where they were spiritually. Yet even in exile, the Lord God kept on working on their hearts and sending them His messages of repentance through the prophets. And then, when the time was right, God moved the heart of the Persian king, Cyrus, to allow the people to return to the Promised Land and rebuild their temple! This was a great moment of reconciliation between God and His people.
The people of Judah still struggled to stay faithful to God even after that reconciliation, but God never gave up on them. When the time was right, He sent His own son to make definitive reconciliation, not just for the Chosen ones but for the whole world. As we heard in the second reading today, God our Father, because He is rich in mercy, sent us His only son when we were “dead in our transgressions.”
For us, this is the core of the Gospel, the reason that even during this season of penitence we wear rose colored vestments today–because of the joyful news that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”
God the Son, the only begotten of the Father, Himself came down into the world, took on our human flesh, and with that flesh which was capable of suffering, bore the cross for you and for me and died because of His abundant love for each of us. He paid the price of sin that we could never pay on our own so that we might all be reconciled to the Father!
Now our goal is to live in that reconciliation Jesus has achieved, to cooperate with that saving grace Jesus constantly pours out for each and every one of us. Because the reality of sin is that it kills us. It makes us wander far from the God who loves us and has made us for life with Himself. Sin destins us for a life of frustration, separation, loneliness, and ultimately the horror of an eternity spent apart from the Love who is God.
But this doesn’t have to happen, because whoever believes in Jesus will not be condemned. This belief is much more than mere intellectual consent. We aren’t saved by an idea, but by the Person of Jesus, who wants us to let Him renew our lives through living in Him! As St Paul said so well in the second reading, we are God the Father’s handiwork: “created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them.” God calls each of us to a life of good works done in Jesus through which we might truly live. What a gift it is to be called from the darkness and gloom of sin to the brightness of a life lived in God!
So I invite you to ponder where you stand with the Father on this Sunday where we are called to rejoice. Perhaps there are ways in which you have wandered far from His love. Maybe darkness has gained a stronghold within your heart. Maybe you feel dead inside and wonder whether the Father could ever love you after something you’ve done.
Know that if you are in that place, the Father calls out to you to come home to Him, to return to His love through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where He wants to renew your heart with that sanctifying grace that Jesus pours out from the Cross. The life lived in Jesus is a life of joy that goes deeper than anything this world can offer! And it is here for you. The Father calls you to return to His love, the Saints are praying for you right now, and the Holy Spirit is moving in your heart, tugging on you to return!
Maybe as you look into yourself with the light of the Holy Spirit, you recognize that even though you are in the Father’s embrace, there are still ways that you struggle against His loving arms. Give those struggles to Him today. In all of our sins, we put unnecessary space between ourselves and the Father. He wants to close that distance, not to smother us but to lift us up! There is more for you than the paltry pleasures and distractions that you allow to get between you and Him.
No matter where we stand with regard to God the Father on this day, He invites us closer to Him, so that through His Beloved Son Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we might more and more know the abundant joy of life lived as His sons and daughters. Because of this, let us rejoice! We are His and He loves us!
+ Loving Father, thank you for never giving up on us. Jesus, thank you for dying so that we might be reconciled to the Father. Holy Spirit, help us to embrace reconciliation with the Father so that our hearts can rejoice in the newness of life that only you can bring! We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen. +