Love waits at the end of the journey home

By Mary Regina Morrell

"While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him." Luke 15:20

One of the things I don't miss now that my sons are nearly all grown up is the waiting expectantly for them to come home from playing as it began to grow dark.

Any mother with a large family will tell you, especially if you are a worrying mom like I am, that you are bound to spend more hours waiting than you do sleeping.

My style was to walk down to the street behind our house and plant myself at the corner, peering deeply down the road that led into the park, searching for any sign of movement that may have signaled two, or four, or six, or eight little feet peddling their bicycles in a furious attempt to get home before curfew.

Often I would make multiple trips to that corner, in between running back home to check on the little ones that were left behind. I imagined my mother did the same thing, especially my being an only child and her being 100 times worse at worrying than I was.

Certainly, she did it when I was a teenager because I often caught her, staring intently out the window and down the street looking for any sign of the car that may be bringing me safely home.

Only as a mother myself did I begin to understand the ache in her heart when I was late, and the deep pain she must have felt when finally I moved away from home and no amount of gazing down the road would find me coming back.

I had been the prodigal daughter on more than one occasion but there ultimately came a time when I finally understood the anguish of the father of the prodigal son. Before then I imagined him busy with work outside the family home when out of the corner of a disinterested eye he happened to notice some movement down the road. Of course he was pleased to see his son but my lack of experience led me to believe it was really "all in a day."

But when real love fills the heart, the absence of a beloved leads one to repeatedly look out the window, to peer intently down the road, to yearn, to worry, to imagine, to grieve and suddenly we can understand not only the father of the prodigal son but our God, as well.

With the eyes of the heart we see the father going to stand in the road, time and again, day after day, maybe year after year, peering intently into the distance and praying for some movement that would signal the return of his son who "was lost".

With the eyes of faith we can also imagine our God yearning passionately for our return, and we may wonder how often God stares intently down the path we should be walking, waiting with unbounded love for that moment when our hearts open without fear and we begin the journey home.

And considering the number of beloved children separated from God, it wouldn't be hard to imagine God's tent being pitched at the road's corner so God wouldn't miss one moment of a homecoming embrace!

____________________________

Mary Morrell is the author of Angels in High Top Sneakers from Loyola Press.

Contact

Diocese of Metuchen
http://diometuchen.org NJ, US
Mary Regina Morrell - Associate Director, Office of Religious Education, 732 562-1990

Email

mmorrell@diometuchen.org

Keywords

Love

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