Lover unfair?

Today’s Gospel teaching is all about the parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. In each one of them is the incarnate Christ in the person of the shepherd, the woman who lost a coin, and the father of the Prodigal Son (Lk. 15: 1-32). He lived each one of them to the hilt, and He is missioning us to do likewise, if we claim to be His disciples.

The ever-caring shepherd who had a hundred sheep lost just one of them. He left the ninety-nine who were in safety and made all efforts to search for the lost one until he found it. He then rejoiced and had a big celebration. That was how much he cared for that one lost sheep (vv. 4-7). Similarly, a woman had ten coins and lost one. She did not stop searching until she found it. (vv. 8-10).

The most humanly touching of course was the third parable, that of the Prodigal Son. After successfully persuading his father to give him his inheritance in advance, this younger son left home and went to a far country, where he lived a dissipated life and squandered all his inheritance, until he was practically starving to death. His heart was moved to repentance as he remembered how good and loving his father was. We know the rest of the story, as immortalized by the life of Christ Himself, the Father of Compassion unlimited (vv. 11-32).

Human as we are, each one of us at times may tend to act more like the younger son, and at other times more like the elder son, who resented and resisted his father’s unconditional forgiveness toward the erring son as unfair. But the spiritual call to each one of us is precisely to be the ever-loving, ever-forgiving father of that prodigal son. “Be compassionate as your heavenly Father is compassionate” (Lk. 6: 36).

All this and more is expressed so inspiringly by the late spiritual guru, Henri Nouwen, in his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son. His concluding chapter is precisely entitled: “Becoming the Father.” In part, he writes and I quote: “What I am called to make true is whether I am the younger or the elder son, I am the son of my compassionate Father. I am an heir….Indeed, as son and heir I am to become successor. I am destined to step into my Father’s place and offer to others the same compassion that he has offered me. The return to the Father is ultimately to become the Father.”

The Fatherhood of Compassion is not only present in our Christian tradition, but in other religious traditions as well.

“There is a story about a very old rabbi. One day a father came to him to complain about one of his two sons. He said: ‘My older son is so nice; my older son is so God-fearing; my older one is so respectful to me; my older son is my hope in life; but my younger son is so bad; my younger son respects neither God nor man; my younger son will be my death. What should I do? The rabbi listened; he even had closed his eyes to listen better; he was silent for quite some time and then he said: ‘Your younger son needs your love most’” (From J. Donders, Jesus, Hope Drawing Near).

Christ taught and lived all that, and went even further: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Lk. 6: 27). As He hung on the cross, He prayed for His crucifiers: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do” (Lk. 23: 34).

The hostage crisis last August 23 had a most tragic ending, and we will continue to suffer for it in the months and even years to come. After prayerfully reflecting on the whole incident with all its painful details, I believe that we failed dismally in saving innocent lives. Even the chief negotiator, Supt. Orlando Yebra, humbly admitted this. “It was a failure for us. Especially for us negotiators, our objective is to save lives of hostages and even the life of the hostage-taker.” He explicitly said that he was not consulted regarding the actual armed assault on the bus and was still hoping for a peaceful resolution. If consulted, Yebra said he would have told them, “No, not yet” (Phil. STAR, Sept. 7, 2010, p.1).

No one in his right mind would have done what Rolando Mendoza did. He was obviously psycho-emotionally disturbed, and should have been treated with sensitivity and prudence, including his younger brother Gregorio, most especially for the sake of the innocent hostages. But this was not done, which triggered off the mentally disturbed Rolando to shoot and kill.

What would the human, compassionate Christ have done had he been actively involved in the incident? What could have been His loving tactics to save those innocent victims and that of the disturbed hostage-taker? A very significant question to ponder and pray over.