Learning Accompaniment from the Father - Blessed Meditations

Opening Prayer and the Younger Son's Scandalous Departure My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I beg your pardon for my sins. The grace to spend this time of prayer fruitfully, My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph's, my Father and Lord my guardian Angel, intercede for me. Jesus told the crowd a parable. There was a man who had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, Father give me the share of property that falls to me and he divided his living between them. How simply and straightforward Our Lord begins the power block, catching his listeners attention as to what will transpire in such a powerful manner after requests of the Son to his father. Give me my inheritance. That alone was enough to make one's thought run to think what a scandalous thing to say to 1's parents. Because one is asking indirectly that the life of the parent is in a way shortened or curtailed in order to receive what is not necessarily due to oneself. Because the father is free to give to whom he wishes naturally. To his children, yes, but not in the manner with which it had been asked of him, but as if it was the most natural thing to do. The father divided his wealth between the two of his sons. Of course, one could also consider the more even scandalous consideration that the son left the father and his brother and spent a life of quote UN quote loose living and wasting all that he had received from his father. As if you and I were also asking ourselves, what would I have done with such an inheritance? I would have put it to good use. I may have tried to earn even more. It is for this reason that they say that our Lord's parable of the prodigal son seems to put into motion his other parables, The goodness of the father, the talents, the banquet of the Kingdom, forgiveness. The Father's Pity and Plea to Both His Sons And so we are told that while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him tenderly. And that was the reaction of the Father. That is the reaction of our Father God. Every time we return to Him empty handed, every time we go to Him asking for forgiveness, each time we return beginning again to remind us that truly, without You, Lord, we cannot do anything, that it seems that in every step of life, material and spiritual, we will need Your grace. But not only does the younger son require of the Father's attention, the elder brother would also find himself needing the father. Even though his reaction to the father's mercy and prodigality precisely was one that was negative. The younger son did not show anything outwardly rebellious or critical of the father, whereas the older son had harboured A deeper resentment towards his father, even complaining that his father did not even give him small things to be able to enjoy with his friends, as if he did not have anything of his own, When the father would tell him that everything I have is yours. To this son, the father also comes out to plead with him to ask him to enter the banquet and celebrate. Because this son of mine who is dead, has come back to life, who is lost, has been found again. The Father's Love: Never Static, Always Incarnational The twist in this parable is that the Father's love is never static. It is, we can say, an incarnational movement because we realize that God has always taken the first step in love and mercy and compassion, in pouring out his grace, his love for us. It's the Father who goes out of his way. It is God who goes out of his way. He doesn't wait for his sons to achieve perfection before he meets them. Instead, the Father empties himself of his patriarchal dignity to meet them in their limitations. This is the heart of being other centredness, a love that is so rooted in the identity of the other that it is willing to leave home, quote UN quote, the home of 1's comfort, one's leisure, security, in order to find the one who has been lost, whether it is to find a son in the big style of sin or the other in the field of resentment. This is the Father's love for us, and it is a movement that continues to happen to every soul, yours and mine. And this is the stands we have to ask the Father for as a grace in our prayer and well within the season of lunch, this heart of other centredness, this incarnation of movement that God sent his only begotten Son in order to save us. Why is God so bent in saving us? Why are You, Lord, so determined to love us and bring us to communion with You? Why do you have to go to this extent not only of showing, but of really loving us? Look at our Lord, even at this point of the summit of humility that He has chosen to embrace until the end of time. Because true to His words, Jesus told his disciples, I will be with you until the end of time. And there every time we enter the the Chapel, the oratory, the church, these words ought to resound in our hearts. I will be with you until the end of time, even I if I have to suffer it in this way, God continues to suffer for us there as He is. It's there's no time that this God of ours, this loving God of ours, this forgiving God would even take a break from this point that he has chosen to be with us. And this should move us to see that his heart is such. And it's not the heart only in in general loving us, but loving us in particular in a singular way. This mystery, which can only be explained with another powerful mystery of God's love for us and mercy, also reveals to us how God accompanies us, how God really wants to be in everything that we are, in everything that we do. Learning Accompaniment: Anticipatory Gaze and Proactive Vulnerability If we examine the actuation of the Father in the parable, we can elaborate on the modes on how God wants to be with us in the first place, how he gazes at the horizon constantly. This anticipatory gaze of the father, his longing to be with us, begins long before the physical meeting, and the parable tells us the father saw him while he was still a long way off because his heart had never left his son. This is the other centred focus that remains anchored in the beloved even when they are absent. So when we accompany our loved ones, it's not only by being there physically, but with their hearts straining forward, longing for their presence. As the Father scanned the horizon, looking could it be him? It looks like him. He walks like my son. His hair is of the same cut as my son or colour as my son's hair. See, he was looking for. Why Lord? Because your heart is restless for us. And again, another mystery that God's heart seems to find only rest by being with us and in our life. This means carrying people in our heart through constant prayer and interior concern, so that when they finally come to their senses, they find our hearts always open and waiting rather than locked behind a door of indifference. That's why we want to learn from the Father's heart, that patient, solicitous, waiting, the tenderness of his gaze towards you, towards me, always open. Does my heart carry the same form of accompaniment for those around me? And we can tell our Lord, little does it carry of the same sense because my heart is divided, my heart is distracted, my heart is wounded. And instead of carrying people in my heart through constant prayer and interior concern, perhaps my heart is filled with other things. Yes, people, but not people that you are asking me to love. Lord. Yes, persons, but not the ones you're asking me to accompany. The other day, taking coffee in a shop and there was a group of women I cannot avoid, but they were very close to my table and they were talking about people. Names started to come out. One or two were familiar to me because they were people in the world of acting, movies, celebrities. The rest I could not connect with. And of course how vigilant and how they follow these people in their social media posts. What 1 is doing, what one had worn, what one had said, where the other one is travelling endless. And it was literally like I was already part of their conversation because that was how loud they were talking. We are not here to judge them others for the same matter, but to look at your heart and mind. Who do I accompany with this anticipatory gaze? Like the father? Another mode in which the Father invites us to take is that proactive vulnerability of the father. He runs to the son. In the ancient E, it is said a dignified patriot never runs because of course the position that they have, things must come to them. People should go to them. People should ask them. It's not that they should be the ones to run to go, but here in the parble we are told the Father runs to the Son. By running, the Father takes the Son's shame upon himself. He empties himself in order to bridge the gap. It is the second person of the Blessed Trinity who runs from heaven to meet us by becoming man. This is a mode of accompaniment where we sacrifice our own prestige, our right to be right, to ensure the other person feels welcome. It is the physical visibility of a love that is more concerned with the return of a soul than with maintaining its own dignified status. How far am I from this Lord? Rather than to accompany people in this proactive vulnerability, I wait. Sometimes we hear this when people say, Well, he was the one who started it. He was the one who offended me. Let him come to ask for forgiveness in the same way that perhaps you and I would feel well. If the person has a problem, then just let them come. And if they want to ask anything, I'm available. I'm in my room. Sometimes we could take that stance because we feel well, I'm not the one who should do it. They should be the ones because they're in a worse state, condition, a lack of formation, background, how much we have to learn from the father's proactive vulnerability to run. Because people sometimes have lost their own dignity, their human respects, in the sense of seeing themselves no longer worthy of anything. That's what the son was about to tell his father. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. And yet the father seems to be deaf, even blind, as it is represented to us in some works of art as Rembrandt, prodigal son. The father is poor of his, of his sight, unable to truly see the condition of the son. But that does not matter. What really is of great import for him is the Son has returned. Are we ready to sacrifice our own prestige? Because this is another step to accompanying the others? And then the Father doesn't stop there, because there's another mode. Accompaniment Through Restoring Identity, Thresholds, and Shared Rest He gives the son back his identity, the restorative vesting of the son. When we are with the others, we just don't walk with their misery, their difficulties, their anxieties, their insecurities, but we lead them out of it. The Father doesn't leave the Son in his rags to teach him a lesson. He immediately provides the best robe grace, the ring authority, and the sandals freedom. This, we can call it our Apostolic accompaniment of the people around us so that we help them rediscover their forged identity as children of God and we accompany them by investing in them, giving them our trust, our time and the sacraments to remind them who they truly are. This is not simply telling ourselves going the extra mile, but this is how we have to really naturally accompany the others. We don't give them a recipe and we say, OK, go ahead. Find out how to go about this search Google. But when it comes to the spiritual life, they need us to guide them, to hold them, to kneel beside them, to pray with them and for them. So if we want to make, as our Father said, the young fellows, men of prayer, because if we don't, we have wasted our time, then they must see us pray. They must see us sacrifice, they must see us compassionate, they must see us work. People are not machines that we press a sequence of buttons and they will start functioning the way we expect them to. We must have the heart of the Father to realize that if we had, if they have to take a step, it might mean taking 2 steps ahead of them and leading them, but being with them. It's not a matter of saying, well, read this book and hopefully you get hit somewhere in one chapter there, especially in chapter two or three, or go to the meditation because probably then the priest will say something that will hit you. No, otherwise we will not have the Father's heart. Wouldn't it be better to say, would you like to take, say, a part of the rosary with me? And the part means probably only 10 Hail Marys? Would you like to say a little visit with me to pray for, a little intention, to pray for the Father, to pray for the Pope? And now would you like me and you to go to the Chapel there nearby? Let's pray for peace in the Middle East. That is, I believe how we will make them men and women of prayer. This is our Apostolic accompaniment. But this is not complete without the accompaniment of the threshold, because the elder son is physically at home but spiritually in a distant country. The father's accompaniment here is a pleading proximity. He leaves the warmth of the feast to stand in the cold dark field of the son's resentment. He doesn't command the son to come in, he invites him. This highlights an accompaniment of extreme patience for those who are hard of heart. In Tagalog we say sigina, sigina kalimutanmuna, let's go. And sometimes we have to take them by the elbow, slowly encouraging them and then giving them perhaps the tray, the food, eating with them in the corner where everyone is enjoying, seeing them enjoy. And slowly the people warm up to it, being willing to stay in that uncomfortable middle ground until the other is ready to move towards joy. How do we really do this for one another and for everyone? Or do we feel well? Didn't he see what I just did? Didn't hear from the servants that his brother is back, that I gave his the brother this treatment. It's enough. But again, the father takes this accompaniment of the threshold and of course, the accompaniment of shared rest, the feast. The father insists on a celebration because true and genuine accompaniment reaches its peak in communal rests. It was only right we should celebrate his sis. He accompanies his sons by inviting them into his own joy, into that Apostolic family mound, doing things together like our Father taught us, even if we're far away. But our hearts are centred on the others, our imagination, our longings. It is the realization that we aren't just workers in the vineyard, but family members resting in the presence of the One who loves us. Embracing the Father's Art of Accompaniment in Prayer What a beautiful consideration for Lent if we ask ourselves about these modes that the Father teaches us and how to be with the others through our gaze. But not just the gaze of our eyes, but of our hearts, our willingness to run, that is losing our face, even to drop, in my case, my priestly dignity, to make that reconciliation happen. And also to vest them, not to be fixated on the rags, their sins, but to look for the robe that will cover them with charity. Let us ask our Father, God ABBA, Father, you are the God who comes out to meet us, and trust to me a heart that doesn't just wait for the loss to return, but goes out to find them. Our Mother Mary, woman of the long distance gaze, you who accompanied your son from the hidden years of Nazareth to his abandonment on Calvary. Teach me this art of accompaniment. Help me to stand at the thresholds of other people's lives with your same silence, with your same patience, your same other centredness, in short, your love. Take my hand as I walk with my brothers and sisters and with you. Lead us all to safety into the eternal feast of your Son. I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me in this meditation. I beg your help in performing them. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian Angel, intercede for me.