We see dynamic story at work in the Gospel of the so called prodigal son, though with a twist. The younger son is indeed prodigal – wasteful and dissolute. He has forgotten his father, his family and even his faith as he is reduced to working as a swineherd. It is there, at his lowest ebb, that he “comes to his senses”: he remembers, and the key thing he remembers is his father – his father’s house, his father’s goodness, his father’s love. The twist is that Jesus told this story to the scribes and Pharisees who were grumbling that Jesus was mixing with tax collectors and sinners and eating with them. They are represented in the figure of the elder son who cannot countenance forgiving the younger son. He can only remember the wrong his brother has committed, and so he is unable to forgive.

We are invited to bring resolution to this unfinished story. It is unfinished because we don’t know what the elder son did next. As the camera fades out, we are left wondering what the elder son will do, and importantly: what I will do? Jesus poses this startling challenge to us: will you embrace the way of forgiveness in your own life, and so join the celebration of God’s mercy, or do you prefer to stay outside, clinging to your memory of hurts, anger and offenses?

The Gospel leaves some major questions unanswered. How can God allow innocent people to suffer and die? It would almost be easier to understand a god who instantly punishes sins, but Jesus clearly distances himself (and His Father) from any such conclusion. Of course, this is what causes people to ask, “How can God allow innocent people to suffer?” There is some helpful biblical background to this issue in today’s first reading: the conversation between Moses and God via the burning bush. What God says to Moses is, “I have heard the cry of my people in their distress…I mean to respond to their need.” This applies to the distress of God’s people who are slaves in Egypt. God pledges to free them, but there is also the revelation of the name by which God chooses to be known: “I Am” meaning “the one who always is”. We can conclude, then, that God always hears the cry of God’s people in their distress, and always responds. The Good News that Jesus reveals is that He is God’s response to our need. In Jesus, God doesn’t take away human suffering; God shares in it. Every parent knows the impossibility of taking away a child’s pain; like every parent, God our Father shares the suffering of all His children. The death of Jesus guarantees this, and His resurrection points to the total destruction of all suffering, all pain, all sorrow.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of a journey. The journey doesn’t end with the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. On that day, we gaze up into the heavens but realize that we still have work to do on earth and places to go.

Only in the Gospel of St. Luke are we told that Jesus climbed the mountain of the transfiguration in order to pray. St. Luke emphasizes the role of prayer in the lives of Jesus and His disciples. He had learned how the Church could not make progress without prayer, and if we ask what is wrong with the Church, and our own lives, the answer is often the same: there is not enough prayer. The story of transfiguration is a story of prayer, and our understanding of it can be deepened if we look back in the Bible. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he found the people worshiping a golden calf, and he was angry but he stayed with them. Elijah, too, ran from the people, but found faith among the Gentiles. Jesus finds confusion among the people He has left behind but, instead of running away, He sets His face for Jerusalem. Prayer gives us peace, but we have to take that peace into the turbulence of people’s lives.

All our readings today are descriptions of people standing up for what they believe and putting their lives on the line as a consequence of that belief. The words of Moses – “My father was a wandering Aramaean”- are a form of foundational creed of the Jewish people. It expresses their origins, their identity, their relationship with God, and their belief in what God has done for them. God turned this group of nomads into a settle people, freeing them from slavery and giving them a blessed and fruitful land in which they could live in peace with each other and with their God. That is a dream. Jesus’ responses to the devil’s three temptations in effect give us Jesus’ own statement of faith. He rejects the lure of materialism, the danger of thinking that all is important to the human person is to feed the body, to look for happiness and fulfillment in the material things of life. Jesus also resists the attractions of power, fame, glory, popularity, wealth. These are idols, false gods that demand our souls but cannot save. God alone is worthy of our worship. And finally, perhaps the greatest temptation, Jesus refuses to doubt God, to put to the test. The devil withdraws to await a more opportune time. And it is in Gethsemane, and on the cross, that Jesus has, in effect, to stand up and be counted for His beliefs. “Not my will, but yours be done.”