Homily Stories for Lent

There's a detail in the parable of the Prodigal Son that we almost always rush past. The father sees the son "while he was still a long way off." He was watching. He had been watching. Every day, from the gate or the hillside, the father had been looking down the road in the direction his son had gone. He didn't know when — or even if — the boy was coming back. But he kept watching. Lent is an invitation to stop being the son who hasn't left yet, and to start being the son who finally turns around and begins the walk home.

Francis of Assisi was a wealthy young man who had spent his early twenties chasing ambition, military glory, and the approval of his father — a prosperous cloth merchant who wanted a successful son. The conversion didn't happen all at once. It began when Francis kissed a leper on the road outside Assisi. He had always been disgusted by lepers. But in that moment, something broke open in him. He said later that what had seemed bitter to him became sweet, and what had seemed sweet became bitter. That reversal — that exchange of values — is what Lent is asking of us.

I want to tell you a story I made up. Imagine a beautiful old house — well-kept, well-loved, rooms clean and open to visitors. Except one. One room, in the back, that the owner never opens. He doesn't ignore it; he knows it's there. He just never goes in. Lent is the season when God knocks on the door of that room. Not to condemn what's in it. Not to expose us to the neighbours. Just to come in — because He wants to be present in all of it. The whole house. That's the invitation. — That's not a real story. But it describes a real situation in most of us.