GOD KNOWS ^_[1]

EACH CHARACTER

1. Each character in a dream, as some research suggests, represents a particular aspect or concern of the person dreaming. Identifying one's primary dream self is not difficult, but the dreamer may be reluctant to admit that the "bad guy" or critical parent in his dream is simply another expression of himself and not a psychic "guest". However condensed, elaborated, or distorted the imagery one experiences in dreams, the secondary self may at times be more revealing and informative than the primary.

2. Dreams are frustratingly symbolic and elusive. They generally are not scripted scenes in which persons are invited to act in starring roles inside the head of the dreamer. Dreams mysteriously work below the ego to sort out psychogenic issues of the day, unresolved conflicts, and the sheer impact of thoughts, images and emotions accumulated during wakefulness. Occasionally, dreams reveal something of the person dreaming.

ENDLESSLY VARIEGATED

3. We perceive that the dream content consists of recognizable elements or fragments of conscious experiences and perceptions. Dreams are mysterious. They are seemingly random, endlessly variegated and sometimes disturbing. No person may control the content, sequencing or intensity of his dreams. Conscious rationality is one way of speaking about human reason. Awareness is another, and it is this all-encompassing latter that the dream process must address.

4. The next time you wake from a significant dream, give some attention to its important figures. Perhaps each figure in the dream stands for some critical aspect of your own personhood. What could this dream person strongly represent? What might this dream and its symbols say about you, about who you are, and what you are dealing with?

UNLOCKING THE MYSTERY

5. Dreams are often rich, extravagant and sometimes very informative. It is this rather dreamlike quality that makes Luke's story of the Prodigal Son the most beloved and compelling parable of all. We love this parable because it functions as a key, a key which unlocks the mystery of our humanity and our relationship with God. The parable offers many insights and many lessons—chief among them being the rich and extravagant reality of God’s mercy.

6. Who could read this parable and not conclude that within himself exists both sons--the younger, selfish, arrogant and wasteful in uneasy coexistence with the older son who is cold, harsh, and hard. We would like to think, as evidence of human hopefulness, that we could be the father whose heart is a reservoir of generosity, love and mercy.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

7. Clearly, we see something of ourselves in each of the three characters of the parable. The father, the older son, and the younger son, each represent the best and the worst in us, the royal road of pleasure and the way of sorrows, rejection and acceptance, folly and wisdom, betrayal and mercy, mourning and celebration. The parable, whatever its peculiar elements, addresses the question: What does it mean to be a more humane human being?

8. We could not begin to exhaust the possibilities of meaning in this story. Jesus’ parable is amazingly effective at uniting his mission as story-teller with the experiences of his listeners. Each brings a multiplicity of nuances, variations, and subtleties to the text. Parables are meant to be heard rather than read. But readers everywhere—Christian and non-Christian alike—are not left out. Anyone who reads this story seriously may say at the end, I understand.

WITHIN YOUR HUMANITY

9. To ponder this wonderful story is time well spent. To enjoy again its profound lessons of love and mercy is medicine for the soul. Be attentive to the characters of the father, the older and younger sons, and how each has something to say about you, who you are and the person God wants you to be. For our Divine Lesson today, I invite you to consider that, within your own humanity, exists the nature of both brothers of the parable. The character of the father suggests a figure in the supernatural order, perhaps God the heavenly Father, but we are not prevented from appropriating something of the father figure for ourselves.

10. When asked by Peter, "'Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?', Jesus said to him, 'I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.'" [Mt 18:21-22] By coming to terms with the three persons of Luke's parable and what they represent, you may be able to come to terms with yourself. Consider as well, that your true and lasting home is the Church, and it is within the Church one celebrates the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

YOUNGER BROTHER

11. You and I are well-represented by the younger brother. We live disordered lives. We are sinners, and on occasion, our sin is shocking. Our sin is known and there for all to see. That one may control the evil he commits is the oldest fiction in the world. Evil is beyond our control. We scarcely can hide it. We have wandered far away from the Father's House, squandering the valuable gifts and blessings we have received from God. We presume that our love-ableness will overwhelm God, that God must rescue us or risk our rejection.

12. We deserve to be supported, because we are superior creatures. Responsibility, hard work and accomplishment are the death of the artistic soul. Tortured by the muse within us, we rationalize being impulsive, reckless and fickle as the only truth. Our hearts pound with impoverishment, distress, and dread of the future. On a day of sunshine, our soul cannot throw off the shroud of sorrow.

OLDER BROTHER

13. You and I are also like the older brother. We keep a tight cover over our sins. We keep them hidden, behind doors, under cover, and under our control or power. We try to cover-over or erase our sins by doing admirable things in the eyes of others. We think doing our duty is a safe harbor, strong armor, and proof of integrity. We suppress everything in the name of work. As long as we work, we need not face ourselves. We imagine that duty cancels out our sin and gives us a strong negotiating position at judgment.

14. We carefully cultivate propriety and correctness. Like a bank teller, we sit in our little cage totting up things. While we work, we tally up everybody else’s sins. We rehearse what to say to people we despise, how we’re going to get even with them. We snarl and hiss with indignation. We grow rigid, aloof, and isolated in our self-determined respectability. We make harshness a virtue, extol suffering for its own sake, and constantly ratchet up expectations.

"OUTSIDE THE HOUSE"

15. It’s a mystery, surely, that you and I who are different persons, can see ourselves in these two conflicted brothers. We need to come to our senses. Surely you recognized, in the reading of the parable, the devastating reality that both brothers are outside the house? For different reasons, each brother is estranged from his father. Being “outside the house” is not merely an accident of the story. “Outside the house” refers to nothing less than alienation, isolation, aloneness, and disaffection.

16. We think we control the world, or our little corner of it, because our hands have engaged in its commerce. We prefer ownership to relationship, and remorseless power over vulnerability. We break the rules we mercilessly impose on others. Second chances are for sissies. No one who falls can be redeemed. Sadly, however, our abiding anger reminds us that control is elusive and addictive, consuming more human resources with each passing day. We are masters of all that we see. What we see everywhere, however, is stress, disappointment, failure, enemies and a compulsion to punish. We are anxious and insecure, dying by degrees from the inside out.

OUTSIDE THE HOUSE

17. According to the parable, being "outside the house" is a symbolic of being incomplete, unfulfilled and lacking. Mercy prepares her house and hosts a great celebration in honor of reconciliation between human beings and God. The implication is clear: The person who stands apart from her joy is something less than a humane human being. To be human in the full sense of the term is to be inside mercy's house.

18. Human beings are meant to belong to friendship circles, to be intimate members of a family, to be a cherished neighbors in a community, and beloved disciples of Christ’s Church. Each brother of the parable is outside his father’s house. Somewhere along the line, each has grown apart from the other and his father. Each has become cold and indifferent to the other. The younger son runs away from responsibility. A child in a grown-up body, he fears maturing. He is truly afraid of the world that lies beyond. His hope falters. He dreads the future. The child will not leave his play.

GOOD RIDDANCE

19. The older brother is a hard worker. When it comes to labor, crops, engineering, machinery, raw materials, and finished product, he makes a great effort. But he shuns the work of human relationships. He says to himself, Good riddance. With his younger brother out of the way, he can take center stage and be a one-man show. Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" [Jn 14:2] Hence, we learn to consider the phrase "my father's house" as an expression of the Kingdom of God.

20. In the parable, both brothers are apart from God who is mercy itself and therefore are outside his kingdom. Before God's infinite holiness, we are all outcasts. Can see something of yourself in these two brothers? The late Dom Helder Pessoa Camera, Archbishop of Recife and Olinda in northeast Brazil, addressed these concerns: Which one of the brothers is closer to salvation? Conversely, which of the two is in greater peril?

I PRAY incessantly for the conversion of the prodigal son's brother. Ever in my ear rings the dread warning. The one has awoken from his life of sin. When will the other awaken from his virtue? (August 29th, 1962) ^[2]

WORST ENEMY

21. Sacred Scripture says that the young man, alone and miserable in a foreign country “came to himself”. [Lk 15:17] Have you taken a moment in prayer to ask God what this means? He “came to himself”. Where had he been? The young man was overwhelmed by adversity and the turmoil of his heart. Just as he had walked away from his father, the younger son had abandoned his true self. Forsaking peace with his father, he declared war on himself. He took himself hostage to a far country.

22. Each day he tried to re-create himself, to bind himself to a new idea, a new so-called truth, a new form of self-expression, a new soul-mate. He became his own worst enemy. Yet, there was hope. The young man discovered within himself a desire to reconcile with his father. He cherished the possibility of his father forgiving him. He nurtured this new-found hope and dared to believe it could happen. He had left home with a trove of unearned riches. He would go back with humility.

"TRUE-TO-BEING"

23. At the moment of his conversion, he renounced his tyrannical self. He rebuked all the fantastic experimentations and innovations that threatened his very life. Desperately and heroically, he abandoned his false self with its masks and disguises. He returned to a fundamental memory—the fountain we may say—of his true self. He was a man, the son of his father. This memory of “true-to-being” brought the boy back to his senses. Personal and communal integrity is an absolute precondition for living a meaningful life.

24. Far better to be an imperfect and humble son than a perfect paramour, paladin or prince. Reconciling with his authentic self, the young man came to a startling realization. Sins on earth are simultaneously sins against heaven. The younger son “remembered” what it meant to be a human being. He returned to the primordial memory shared by all human beings: He was made in the image and likeness of God the Father!

MAN'S INHUMANITY

25. Our sins are many and very obvious to God. We may rationalize them or dismiss them in some abstract way. We may laugh about them and strew them about us like roadside litter. But God knows. God knows! Nothing is hidden from him. He knows our games, our self-deceptions, our schemes and strategies. He sees our tortured hearts, our lawlessness, the dark corners and hidden secrets.

26. Obsession with worldly rank, privilege, pleasure and material things reveals a profound poverty of spirit. None of us, not even presidents and prime ministers, can repay God for his merciful love. The famine in the parable is a lesson to us that we cannot count on the world or its leaders to care for us spiritually and feed our true hunger. Our own anger and compulsions contribute to the world's poverty of spirit. When all is said and done, the history of man’s inhumanity to man is a mountain of broken hearts and wrecked relationships.

"GOD'S OWN WORKS"

27. St. Therese of Lisieux wrote that, in the twilight of this life, we shall stand before God with empty hands. Not even the good works of saints possess merit on their own apart from God. All of us, saint and sinner alike, will desire a favorable judgment however. To have any hope for this, we must be judged according to the merits of God's own works in us.^[3]

28.  Your first face-to-face conversation with God will be at the moment of your own judgment. This being true, it would be most dreadful to stand before God and hear what? Nothing! The silence would be terrifying. The silence would be your sentence. If the “merits of God’s own works” did not take root in your life, what could you expect to hear but the words, I don’t know you?

"MEMORY IS BITTER TO ME"

29. The writer and journalist Stephen Crane is famous for his Civil War novel THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE published in 1895. Not many people realize he was an accomplished poet. One of his more endearing poems concerns the absurdity of human frailty and over-confidence. In Crane's poem, human souls are little blades of grass standing before God in judgment. One little blade, however, is different than all the rest.

XVIII
In heaven,
Some little blades of grass
Stood before God.
"What did you do?"
Then all save one of the little blades
Began eagerly to relate
The merits of their lives.
This one stayed a small way behind,
Ashamed.
Presently, God said,
"And what did you do?"
The little blade answered, "O my lord,
Memory is bitter to me,
For, if I did good deeds,
I know not of them."
Then God, in all His splendor,
Arose from His Throne.
"O best little blade of grass!" He said. ^[4]

30. When did you last humble yourself before God in the Sacrament of Confession? When are you going to make confession a habit in your life? Are you God’s faithless son, his faithless daughter? God approaches you in the midst of your anxious activities. The heavenly Father goes out to meet you, his prideful, disobedient child on the road. His arms are open to embrace you. He speaks to you in the depth of your conscience. Are you listening? Will you reach out to him? He has prepared the medicine of truth and forgiveness. Will you take it?

PRODIGAL MERCY

31. Our heavenly Father wills for you to be “true-to-your-being”. This is to say that other persons need to recognize you as a humane human being. Will you be true to God's image and likeness? Will you be true to the “mind of Christ”? [cf. 1Cor 2:16] Will God be able to recognize something of himself in you? Is the sacrifice of Christ on the cross the very center of your memory and your human identity? It is just possible that you do understand? That you realize the father and his younger son in the parable have the same prodigal heart? Ironic is it not? The father’s mercy is as prodigal as the younger son’s irresponsible conduct!

32. From his house, the father sees someone in the distance, bowed and broken, stumbling on the road. This stranger in the road? Who is coming to my house? Could it be? No, it is not possible. I lost him so long ago. O Lord, it is my son! My boy! His heart pounding, the father takes the first agonizing step, another and then another. And he runs. The young boy looks up. He sees his father running to him. He cries, Don’t run, father. Don’t run. I don’t deserve it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for how I’ve hurt you.

DESERVING OF A BANQUET

33. The Mass expresses our heavenly father’s love most beautifully. In the sacrifice, the Church prays to the Father in heaven: “When we were lost and could not find the way to you, you loved us more than ever…” [SACRAMENTARY Reconciliation I, Appendix VI p. 1124] And so this faithful father and tormented boy meet on the road leading to their home. How long they embrace we do not know. But we do know that the father thought it “fitting to make merry and be glad, for (his son) was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found”. [Lk 15:32]

34. Our Lord Jesus Christ understands. He understands why mercy is deserving of a banquet: “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” [Lk 15:7] If we are to honor that which is supremely noble in human beings, let us remember to honor mercy. Conscious that human beings must embrace excellence and virtue to thrive, mercy pleads pardon before the tribunal of justice. Mercy is hope’s pledge and the guarantor of man’s humanity. By mercy alone can one summon the courage to lay down his most formidable weapon--anger.

POWERFUL AND REGENERATIVE

35. Our heavenly Father joyfully invites you into his sacred household, for he has prepared for you a lavish banquet of acceptance, forgiveness and love. He desires to clothe you once more in the finest robe, the garment of sinlessness. For your ring, he wants you to possess the seal of confession, and for your footwear, audacious confidence.^[5]

36. Our heavenly Father's mercy is not a sign of weakness. Quite the contrary, our Father's merciful love is very potent, powerful and regenerative. God's mercy goes before us to lift up the valleys, to level the mountains and hills. [cf. Isa 40:4] Mercy is the “Holy Way” [Isa 35:8] prophesied by Isaiah, the open river on the bare height, the fountain in the valley, the pool of water in the wilderness, and the spring of water in dry land. [cf. Isa 41:18] Our Lord declares:

WHOEVER DRINKS of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. [Jn 4:14]

MEMORY OF MERCY

37. Time and distance and forgetfulness—these things are like water in a stream. They are given to man to ease his journey from birth to death and to soften the heartaches that lie between. Nevertheless, they are no substitute for mercy, forgiveness, and the hard work of reconciliation. If forgetfulness and time and distance were the true remedy, God's presence in our lives would be of little importance.

38. There would be no love, no cross, no redemption. Mankind would suffer a long, slow and lonely death in a forgotten vivarium. If one burns with enduring anger like the older son, the memory of mercy that makes one “true-to-being” is consumed as well. The Book of Deuteronomy records that God "found (Israel) in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye." [Deu 32:10]

MERCY SEAT OF GOD

39. For man is a spiritual creature, possessing faith and reason, capable of self-reflection and science, and endowed with an astonishing capacity to create. We advance far in the spiritual life when we understand that mercy is the sum of these things and more with a view to God’s goodness. God is the Supreme Good before whom we must render an accounting. “For I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” [Lev 11:44]

40. These things—language, reason, self-reflection and creativeness—are necessary for the formation of good and satisfying human relationship. Hence, they are indispensable as well for sanctifying human beings and healing relationships. When will we realize that the least place in the Kingdom of God is better than the royal bed of selfishness we’ve prepared for own comfort? The least place in God's kingdom is the kneeler in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The kneeler in confession is the Mercy Seat of God.  [cf. Ex 25:17-22]

HOLY IN GOD'S SIGHT

41. The Mercy Seat of the Sacrament of Confession is where we need to be found. There we will discover our enduring happiness: "For a day in (God's) courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness." [Psa 84:10] As spiritual creatures made in the image and likeness of God [cf. Gen 1:26], we experience the profound desire to know him with all our mind, heart, soul and strength.

42. As fallen creatures, however, we had no hope of fulfilling our desire to know God and please him:

FOR WE ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by men and hating one another; 4.

BUT WHEN the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5. he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, 6.

…WHICH HE poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7. so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life. [Tit 3:3-7]

Do you realize, do you truly realize that God desires your humanity to be holy in his sight? Yes, you may not act holy. You rarely may possess holy thoughts. You may be abusing your body and the core relationships of your life. You may be as far away from God as you think a person can get.

IMAGE AND LIKENESS

43. Against all that is sinful and sad is one reality: In the ages of ages before time, God willed your human personhood to be a holy sign of his own sacred godhead. After all, in whose image and likeness are you made? Your own? By no means! God made you in his image and likeness. [cf. Gen 1:26] And seeing his own likeness in you, our dear Lord Jesus Christ provides for you as his very own:

CHRIST IS everything for us. If you wish to cure a wound, he is doctor; if you burn with fever, he is fountain; if you are oppressed by iniquity, he is justice; if you are in need of help, he is strength; if you fear death, he is life; if you desire heaven, he is the way; if you flee from darkness, he is light; if you seek food, he is nourishment.^[6]

44. God’s love is granted freely, but his trust must be earned—even continually proven. Who can quarrel with this? Who would not want to prove himself before Christ in small and humble ways in the hope that the Son of God, taking pleasure in our little efforts, would lavish upon us the wealth of his Father's house?

WHERE ARE YOU?

45. For our part, however, what remains crucial is whether we are true to our humanity, our very human nature, and true to the living memory of God infused in our souls and revealed to us by his Spirit: "And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap (a harvest), if we do not lose heart." [Gal 6:9]

46. We love in order to learn love. We trust in order to learn trust. We forgive others that we in turn may be forgiven. Certainly at least once, but we may speculate many times, God sets out to meet us on life's road. An old Irish saying expresses well the reality of God’s merciful love: “God meets us precisely on the road we take to avoid him”. The Father sees you while you are yet at a distance. Deeply moved, he is on the road now. Where are you?