The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, was at one time the residence and home of the Russian Czars. Over the centuries the massive building also became the residence and home of some of the world’s greatest paintings, including Rembrandt’s grand “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” likely completed in 1669. The huge masterpiece is a majestic work described by art historian Kenneth Clark as a picture many consider “the greatest picture ever painted.” The father, who is most central to the painting, employs both his hands to endear himself to his repentant offspring. One hand is small and smooth and gentle; the other hand is large and firm and embracing. Some see the smaller hand, almost petting, as representing a mother’s love; while the larger hand, almost clutching, indicates the love of a father. The male/female dimensions of love, which include both judgment and forgiveness, must be present for paternal or maternal or even fraternal love to be authentic.
While there might be a faint image of a woman in an upper corner, possibly the mother, there is no image of the elder brother, so integral to the parable as spoken by Christ. Two gentlemen depicted are no doubt business acquaintances, indicating the father’s prosperity, and there is also a shadowy servant, again indicating a well-to-do family. The painting seems to insist that no one is allowed to steal the tenderness of this father/son reunion. A sense of mercy must remain dominant as the words of Christ’s parable are memorialized in paint: “…this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.” Observers are asked to place themselves strictly within the moment.
Such forgiveness of God the Father for the returned sinner is as extensive as the Bible itself. Psalm 34 at Mass this Sunday celebrates the tenderness of God: “Look to him that you may be radiant with joy, and your faces may not blush with shame. When the poor one called out, the LORD heard, and from all his distress he saved him.” God indeed has open arms and welcoming hands.
The words of St. Paul to the Corinthians also this Sunday speak of the welcoming work of God toward any who have trespassed: “And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.”
Even the first reading at Mass from Joshua recalls God’s cessation of the daily ration of Manna which God had paternally and patiently granted to the Hebrews when they grumbled against him in the wilderness of Sin. God can indeed be very easy-going and forgiving, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
St. Luke never makes any apology for placing merciful forgiveness as his dominant theme. He even alters St. Matthew’s “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” into “Be ye merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful.” However, St. Luke (or maybe Christ) realizes that not all of life is drama. We are not all prodigals, returning hat in hand, after squandering our paycheck on Megabucks tickets. No there are a good number of dutiful elder sons (and daughters) to whom God is only too happy to pat on the back and insist reassuringly, “My child, you are here with me always and everything I have is yours.”
The abiding Presence of God is available at all times and accessible to every gentle believer is just as much a dominant Gospel theme as is the remorse, repentance and renewal of a hardened sinner. The everyday availability of God to the average believer as well as the abundant graces accessible everywhere must never be discounted. The typical Christian life might never be framed in a St. Petersburg palace, but everyday Christian sanctity is just as much the fruit of God’s grace and the result of a believer’s openness to God as were the grand conversions of Augustine or Loyola or Dorothy Day. Surely such is the “daily bread” that Christ directs the believing community to accept from the Father’s hand every moment. Dramatic repentances notwithstanding, piety, goodwill, duty and resourcefulness are equally noble, even if often unnoted, Christian hallmarks.
