Examine your conscience and seek reconciliation
A few weeks ago, my daughter and I arrived back home after a weekend of camping with the Girl Scouts.
Needless to say, we were exhausted and in need of a shower! My daughter’s clothes were stained with mud from a canoeing excursion. Being dead on my feet, I was ready to throw the clothes in the trash and be done with it, but my husband could not bear it. So he took the clothes from the trash and lovingly began scrubbing the mud from the stained areas with a toothbrush and liquid detergent. Surprisingly, it worked! The clothes are now back in good use and I am not out any extra expense to replace them. All it took was a little care, compassion and some elbow grease.
The whole muddy clothes ordeal got me thinking about how quick we are as a society to throw things away. We have rightfully earned the title “a throw-away society,” but in more ways than one.
My generation seems to have forgotten the meaning of the term “heirloom.” Everything from our food to our cleaning supplies, even the most advanced technology, is disposable or made to be recycled after we pitch it out. These examples do a good job of helping us conjure visions of bulging garbage cans, but they may not cut quite deep enough. To look more deeply into our disposable society, we need to ask ourselves how our waste is really about throwing away pieces of our lives.
How quick are we to burn bridges with coworkers or previous bosses? Do we find divorce or separation easier than reconciling our differences? Is it easier to avoid estranged family members instead of mending fences?
I am also very bad about throwing away items in my life for which I have no use, but which someone less fortunate would love to have. At the time, I just want these items out of my way – out of sight, out of mind. When I quickly decide to trash something, it is no longer in my way to worry me. I have washed my hands clean of it, not unlike Pilate did at Jesus’ sentencing. Yet, the hurt still continues somewhere in the world. I choose to put the lid of the trash can on the tough issues so that I cannot see them, but the problems still exist: hurt, hunger, sadness, loneliness, injustice.
The Jubilee Year of Mercy may have come to an end, but that does not mean God’s mercy is spent. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus teaches us how a father’s love never ends.
In the parable, a man has two sons. The younger one asks for all his inheritance so that he may go off in the world and make a life for himself. Consequently, when he goes into the world, he squanders his father’s money and ends up destitute. He hires himself out to a citizen of a nearby town, who gives him a job feeding the pigs on his farm. The son longs to have even the scraps the pigs are eating, because he is poor and hungry, but no one gives him anything. The son makes the decision to return to his father, fall at his feet and ask forgiveness. For even his father’s servants are well cared for and have plenty to eat. He decides to beg for his father’s mercy, to just become one of his servants.
“But while he (the son) was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)
The father immediately asks his servants to kill the fatted calf and celebrate the return of his lost son. The young son is aghast. How could the father accept him back after what he has done? But his father says to his household, “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:24)
Our Father never delights in throwing one soul away. His mercy is endless. Even after commiting the most unspeakable sins, we are meticulously and lovingly restored by Him back to our true form in His own image. We have only to ask Him for forgiveness!
Think for a moment about the shepherd who worked so hard to find the lost sheep out of his flock, the one out of the hundred. He did not say, “Well, I have plenty more. That one sheep was probably a bad seed anyway. We are better off without him.” No, he left the others to look high and low until he found the one that was lost. (Matthew 18)
Perhaps you feel as though you have been discarded or left behind. God is there to lend a hand, to help you out, to find you. Just ask Him in prayer and He will answer.
Perhaps you feel guilty for having thrown someone else in the garbage, or you moved ahead and left someone else completely behind. The Father is still willing to forgive. As a parent, He teaches us the steps to make things right again. He puts people in our path to guide us or He pulls on our consciences so that we are led down the road to renewal. But our hearts must be open to this love, open to God’s mercy and forgiveness.
The next time you lift the lid of your garbage can at home, take time to examine your conscience. Is there anything today that you need to reconcile or recover? Is there anyone who is in need of the mercy that only you can give?
April Parker is a parishioner of St. Pius X Church in Greensboro and a teacher at St. Pius X School. She is also a freelance writer and author.