On Being the Prodigal Son Again. And Again. And Again. And Again. And. . .

Today’s reflection is from Bondings 2.0 contributor, Jeromiah Taylor. 

Today’s readings for the Fourth Sunday of Lent can be found here.

As LGBTQ+ Catholics, we are often compelled to justify our membership within the Church both to other Catholics as well as to those beyond. I’ve never found it easy to answer the question “Why are you Catholic?”, but this week’s lectionary goes a long way towards answering it for me. 

‘The Return of the Prodigal Son’ by Marc Chagall

The parable of the prodigal son belongs to a category of parable which offends our human sense of justice (Cf. Mt. 20:1-16): stories where the righteous receive no surplus but are rewarded equally with the aberrant. 

I often say that if a passage in the gospels challenges me it’s because I’m the person it’s talking about.  But as someone who has often shown up a bit late, who frequently pursues disastrous tangents, and who — if there be any truth to the adage that “slow and steady wins the race” — is doomed to very much lose the race, I find great comfort in these sorts of stories. I can only imagine the indignation of those who are slow and steady, who are faithful, diligent.  These types are represented by the son who never leaves and never gets his own special feast. It really isn’t fair. But I am thankful God isn’t fair: as the psalmist says, “If you marked iniquities oh lord who would remain standing?” I, for one, stand to benefit from a bit of divine affirmative action. 

More than once in my life have I “come to my senses” after some prolonged spiritual blackout and found myself starving to death in a proverbial pig-pen. There is truly nothing we can do or be without Jesus Christ other than a ruinous heap of fear and appetite slowly disintegrating back into the dust from which we came. 

And that is the good news: we haven’t a chance of being good enough, so we need not worry about being better or best. What the creator of the universe wants has nothing to do with performance and everything to do with attitude. God awards no prizes for seniority, for attendance, for the reliable and graduated ascent of human progress. He awards one prize only — eternal life — and he does so based on attitude. As Pope Francis often says, God never tires of forgiving; it is we who tire of asking for forgiveness. 

Thus, we can say truly that like the prodigal son we were lost and have been found. And if you’re like me you can say “I got lost for the fourth time this week and he just found me again!” After several humiliating returns, you do really become what St. Paul calls an ambassador for Christ. To have been reconciled, to have been lost and then to have been found — that is something which makes you larger, freer and more loving. 

St. Paul also tells us in today’s second reading that “Whoever is in Christ is a new creation,” and that God has entrusted to the Church and to the Christian “the ministry of reconciliation.” 

New Ways Ministry took its name in 1977 from a line in the pastoral letter “Sexuality — God’s Gift” written the prior year by Bishop Francis Mugavero of Brooklyn. In that letter the bishop wrote to gay and lesbian Catholics as well as other marginalized faithful that “We pledge our willingness to help you … to try to find new ways to communicate the truth of Christ because we believe it will make you free.”

The parable of the prodigal son and St. Paul’s “new creation” are the original “new way,” and they point to a ministry of reconciliation; a style of reconciliation for the whole Church, for all humanity. The way of extravagant, unwise, reckless grace — or as one priest put it to me in the confessional: “what matters is that you’re here.” 

Perhaps that’s the best explanation LGBTQ+ Catholic can give for our continued life in the Church: “what matters is that we’re here.” And God rejoices in our presence, finding us when we are lost each and every time. tr

—Jeromiah Taylor, New Ways Ministry, March 30, 2025