Prodigal dad

It is only from a human point of view, precisely because we are humans: is it possible to conceive a prodigal father. Why? the reader may ask. Because God, only He who is perfect, is our Father who can never fail us in love and care for us.

This is demonstrated by our Lord’s moving parable about the prodigal son. We can be sure that Jesus narrated this story not only to console us in our falls and encourage us to begin and begin again, but hHe also wanted to set for us the model of His fatherly heart whose mercy and compassion knows no bounds. A heart that every man and woman have to aspire to identify themselves with.

In our brief experience of life, we realize that there are no perfect parents. But this isn’t a pretext to abandon parenthood altogether as a hopeless venture. One can look at it from another angle: that it is a project on the road to perfection. It is a vocation. And it can only be both fulfilling and fulfilled if modeled once again according to the example of the Father’s heart in the parable.

What follows is a touching witness of a father’s desire to mend what others may deem too late to repair. He was dying of cancer but was reluctant at first to inform his son about it. It developed and it became very advanced that he could die any time. This prompted him to write this letter to his son who was living in another country.

Once again we see that it is never too late to love and forgive, as long as we anchor our efforts towards personal conversion always with the help of God’s grace.

* * *

Dear son,

By the time you read this letter, I think I will be dead. I’m sorry to startle you, but I suppose there is no pleasant way to break such news.

I’m a little young to go, and I must say I don’t feel ready, but that is because I have accomplished so little. I look back on my life and there is not much there. Your mother has been a fine wife and I have no regrets on that score. But I seem to have led such a thoroughly second-rate life—not only compared to my father but in view of my capabilities.

I’m finished now, but the last word on my life rests with you. If you turn out well, I can still claim some kind of success in the afterworld.

Remember this if you can: there is nothing, nothing more precious than time. You probably feel that you have a measureless supply of time, but you haven’t. Wasted hours destroy your life just as surely at the beginning as at the end—only at the end it becomes more obvious. Use your time while you have it, my son, in making something of yourself.

Take care of your mother, if she lives to be very old, and be kind to her. She has many faults but she’s good, and she has loved you and me very truly.

Think of me and of what I might have been, my son, at the times in your life when you come to crossroads. For my sake, for the sake of the father who took the wrong turns, take the right ones.

Goodbye, my son. Be a man.

Dad

* * *

On the day like Father’s Day, may we realize that our letters to our children need not have this tone nor have to be literally written on paper. If we have a realistic view of life, one sincerely and generously lived before God and our family, we will write constant and daily ‘letters’ penned by the love and sacrifice of our hearts, and engraved through the good and lasting example of our virtues.