The one we call “the prodigal son” finally hit rock bottom. “When he came to himself” we hear Jesus say in our gospel lesson for today, he made his way home—home to his father’s welcoming arms--home to the father who was watching and waiting in hope for his return--home where the father’s steadfast love never wavered.

The season of Lent provides the opportunity for us to come to ourselves, to realize how we rebel against God in our self-centered choices, to discover just how far we have wandered from God’s way of love in our thoughtless and uncaring treatment of others, to recognize that we are languishing in “a distant country” of our own making. Once our eyes are opened to see the absolute reality of our situation, our hearts are convicted with remorse, much like David when he was confronted for his adultery by the prophet Nathan. David trusted that “a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” We may trust that also.

That is the good news in the story of the prodigal son, the truth of God’s never-failing, compassionate love. To experience that truth for yourself, take time right now to turn to Psalm 51 and pray it from the depths of your soul. Feel the reconciling love of God flowing into your heart, cleansing, healing, transforming you into the “new creation” that the apostle Paul describes in the epistle to the Corinthians today, where “everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” That’s what it’s like when we decide once more to come home, to trust in God’s merciful and steadfast love to reconcile us again into a right relationship with the Divine.