GOD KNOWS ^_[1]

NOT SCRIPTED SCENES

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

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

ENDLESSLY VARIEGATED

3. We perceive that dreams are kaleidoscopic, an orderly succession of changing phases, actions or scenes formed with recognizable elements (fragments) of conscious experiences and perceptions. They are mysterious, seemingly random, and endlessly variegated.

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 subtlties 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 loveableness 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!    For the full reflection, CLICK THIS LINK:   GOD KNOWS