“My son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.” Luke 15:24
“My son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.”
The century that lies behind us has received the name of the century of the child. There was a good reason for this. More than ever before in history people were interested in the child.
We would be equally justified to call our 21st century the century of youth. In our current society youth and youthfulness have become an ideal. This ideal not only applies to younger people; adults too and even older people have to follow it and stay young and vital as long as possible. The ideal picture of eternal youth is only relatively new. Formerly, people looked at the course of life differently. A well-known saying went: “In youth an idealist, as an adult a realist, as a greybeard a mystic.” When we grow old we have a natural inclination to turn inward more and look back on our life. “Looking back in wonder,” a well-known authoress called it.
Only, when we do that at an advanced age, life does not look anymore as it did before. If we are honest with ourselves, we see more and more the shortcomings. The last stretch of the path of life, which we go through in increasing loneliness, is permeated by the realization: I have separated myself from my divine origin and intended purpose. I come home with empty hands, poor and needy like the prodigal son. At the end of life we are all prodigal sons and daughters.
But precisely then, when we have lost all, the Father comes to meet us and bestows on us the only thing we still lack after a life of separation: forgiveness.
-Rev. Bastiaan Baan, August 11, 2024
Hoy fue un día particularmente intenso y malo, especialmente en lo laboral, pero también en muchos aspectos familiares. Esta homilía ha golpeado en mi corazón y me lleva a ver mi vida y mi estado actual. Quiero agradecer por este post.
Saludos desde Argentina,
Thank you for the interesting explanation!
The saying from Angelus Silesius crossed my mind (sorry in German): “Wer nicht stirbt, bevor er stirbt, der verdirbt, wenn er stirbt.” – “He who does not die before he dies, perishes when he dies.”
There is nothing wrong with being youthful and continuing to bring new impulses into the world, but our lifespan is limited, and everything on earth has its own time.