petard.us

This morning at Adult Ed our Rector asked us who were the saints in our lives. Everyone, except me, talked about family members. Mine were clergy. And once again I felt deep envy of people who had a happy family, who had parents and grandparents and siblings to look up to. I don’t. I just rejected them as a child. My doing, if in self defense, and not my fault really. But in another way, it was my fault. I was born. My poor mother.

This was today’s Gospel. The priest asked who in the story we identified and a wiseacre called out, “The fatted calf.” Great laughter. But I started to think was the calf’s role was. His role was to be a festive dinner to celebrate the return of the prodigal.For this he was born, for this he was fatted, for this he lived and died, to celebrate forgiveness and restoral to the family for the prodigal.

Then it hit me. The real fatted calf was the one who make forgiveness and restoral possible. The Lamb of God who living and dying effected the forgiveness and restoral portrayed. Soon we would chow down on our fatted calf, our Lamb of God, and once again be forgiven and restored.