The Israelites ate
their freshly baked unleavened bread
and roasted grain,
but never again had manna to serve.
Deprived of manna’s mercy,
and the water from the Messiah rock,
they learned to reach for Mercy
in the harvests of their hands,
while sharing their tasty roasted grain,
as they shared
in Emmanuel’s containment of sin,
its force a mountain of stone
which he squeezed in his grasp,
creating a pool of Mercy,
which brothers and sister shared
in sacramental abundance
when faith unlocked the larder.
In a parable portrait
the Lord Jesus presented
Mercy’s face.
A good featured younger son
destroyed his inheritance, his family and himself
in tantrums conveying
the sin of refusing to grow.
The grips he selected battered him
and beat into him the lessons of life,
until he moaned for Mercy.
Rembrandt used art to tell
the price the aging father paid
at half his eternal patrimony,
and half the years of life,
sustained in hope
of finding his son alive.
The artist showed
the son’s diseased and tortured body
in the lines of pain the father wore,
but best of all
the joy glared plain
in the thankful father’s eyes
to see his son alive,
and twinges of joy
across his half-smiling lips.
March 6, 2016
Bonaventure Stefun, OFM Cap.
Fourth Sunday of Lent in Holy Year of Mercy