A few weeks ago, the priest gave me the most memorable advice that I’ve heard in the confessional in a long time. I had finished recounting my sins, and, before absolution, Father made this observation: “There’s a similarity among the sins you’ve confessed. Remember that God’s grace and mercy are like Niagara Falls. He’s always ready to pour them out upon us. But to receive them, we have to show up.”
That idea has echoed in my thoughts and prayers ever since. Eventually, I connected it to a phrase that has often struck me in the parable of the prodigal son. We all know the story. The youngest son demands his inheritance (essentially telling his father to drop dead) and goes off to have a grand time in a foreign country. And then a famine hits, the money runs out, and the only work he can find is taking care of a herd of pigs.
Something we thought would bring us happiness, or at least pleasure, winds up with us sitting alone in the mud. But we wouldn’t know anything about that, would we?
The prodigal decides he’s finally had enough of slopping the pigs, and heads back towards his father’s house. And that’s when we get to a part of the story we need to pay close attention to. In describing the son’s return, Jesus says, “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” (Lk 15:20).
Think for a moment about how Our Lord phrases and describes this scene. Put yourself there in the presence of the two men. How was the father able to see the son “while he was still a long way off”? The son had cut off all ties with his father. His father perhaps knew what direction his son had taken off in, but he had heard nothing from him.
Was it mere coincidence that he happened to be looking in the right direction on the very day his son returned? No. It couldn’t be. Our Lord doesn’t state the fact explicitly, but He doesn’t need to. He expects us to fill in the gap from our own experience of fatherhood.
The only way that Jesus’s words make sense is for us to picture the father standing there at the edge of his property each and every day since the son had left. Looking in the direction he had run off longing for him to return.
How many days had the father looked from that spot and seen nothing? The son could have returned at any time, and the father would have been there to welcome him back with open arms. The joy and celebration we read about in the rest of the story was always waiting for him. But the prodigal son had to actually show up.
I have a suspicion that this concept of showing up might be something that men especially may need to reflect on in our modern world. We live by this philosophy in other aspects of our life. How do you improve your physique? By putting in your time at the gym every day. You show up, or you don’t see the gains. You’ll never bag that buck if you don’t go to woods to hunt. You show up to work every day or you don’t get paid. We don’t expect these aspects of our life to work any other way.
But do we show up for the people in our lives, especially our spouse and family? Do we show up for our relationship with God?
Of course, showing up means much more than just being physically present. In this era of cell phones and a million other distractions, we know that. We all have encountered men in our own lives who have been physically present without really being there. Hopefully we’ve not been that man too often. But really being there for the important things in life has been a problem men have had for a long time.
Have you ever wondered where Adam was when his wife was being tempted? I never did, until I listened to a recording of Dr. Scott Hahn talking about the book of Genesis. When God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden, he commanded the first man to keep the garden—keep it in the sense of a gatekeeper; that is, to guard it. The serpent that tempted Eve certainly seems like the sort of thing he should have guarded the garden against.
Yet his wife had a prolonged conversation with the tempter which led to the Fall. Where was Adam? Eve simply needs to turn and give him the fruit. He was there the whole time, but he hadn’t showed up as the man and husband God has called him to be.
Compare this to Our Lord Jesus Christ. We are only a few weeks removed from Christmas, where we celebrated Our Lord as Emmanuel—God With Us. Jesus loves us so much that He came to dwell with us. But He is Emmanuel not just at His birth. He is truly present to His heavenly Father and to us, His brothers and sisters, at each and every moment of His life. Everything He did and said works toward our salvation so that, united to Him in our baptism, we can unite everything we do and say to His saving work.
As Lent is now upon us, we’re participating again in the greatest works of Our Lord’s life—His sacrificial death and resurrection. A lot of us give careful thought to what we’re going to give up this year. But maybe this year, we should think less about giving up and more about showing up.
How can I show up more for God in this season? Maybe not even by increasing my prayers, but by making sure my prayer time is a true encounter with the God who longs to meet me? How can I show up more for my neighbor these next forty days, especially remembering that charity begins at home? My wife and children don’t want my money so much as they want me.
Even fasting can be considered in terms of showing up—at what points in my life do my attachments to food or other material things get in the way of me being more fully present to God and my neighbor? Looked at in this way, fasting is less a stoic exercise in building up our will and more an opportunity to discover where our hearts truly lie.
That’s the challenge I present to men, and especially to myself, this Lent. God wants to bestow untold blessings on you, and through you to your family and friends.
Are we going to show up to receive them?
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Showing up for Christ at Mass, or in the myriad ways Uitvlugt describes draws grace, witnesses to the weak. Little is said of the challenge priests have endured during the centuries, today requiring heroic virtue because of the lack of parishioners and consolidation of parishes. Priests required to travel far greater distances within limited schedules usually beginning their drive during winter, late spring long before dawn. Some priests living on borrowed time fighting illness, rather than retire to Florida continue into their eighties and nineties.
My comment here is not a great theological exposition or reference to significant documents on our faith. Nor is it to follow survey recommendations.Rather more a sentient appeal. Why and how is menial. Example. Many friends tell me they no longer attend Mass because the sermons are too long, others that the priest has little to say, a poor speaker. The Apostle Paul admitted he was a very poor speaker, that when he appeared to the Corinthians, Ephesians, other churches he established it was with fear and trembling. He was weak, unimpressive from the pulpit. He even caused a poor listener to fall asleep and fall off the windowledge and die. Had to resurrect him. Then continued to carry on and on for hours.
What was it then? His powerful letters. His variations on Uitvlugt ways of showing up. By plain showing up. By obvious trial and suffering. By utter honesty, and most of all for his unsurpassable love emanating from the Christ living within.
Its interesting you’d comment on those who no longer attend Mass and are critical of the priests homilies. Too “boring” for them and they “weren’t getting anything out of it. I once read a fabulous essay on this topic (and wish I had kept a record of who wrote it). It said essentially that you were not at Mass because God owed you something, like an hour of entertainment. You were supposed to be in church because YOU owed GOD. You owe Him at least an hour of your time, you owe God love, praise and thanksgiving.Too many approach Mass like they are expecting to be entertained, and bail when it does not meet expectation.I wonder how disappointed God must be in our lack of effort?
We live in a time which for many of us is bleakness. Spiritual bleakness if not cultural. The good events occurring here and there are limited in context of the whole. Uitvlugt’s focus on grace, theologically, stems from the Holy Eucharist. During Lent we might picture ourselves staying awake with Christ at Gethsemane. To draw on him, his real presence at Mass. His presence to us during prayer. An invocation in which he delights to respond. What makes for that transformative prayer is faith in his ineffable good. Our mission in this is that those of us remaining with true faith remain the last intercessory hope for salvation of the many.
You recounted my absolute favorite line in all of the scripture…”While he was still a long way off…”
Such a message of hope. It matters not how far a soul has strayed, if he is headed in the right direction…. Headed home, the Father will run to greet him.
And yes, 90% of the job in parenting is simply showing up.