God Compassionate love for all person

Prayer Service: In Loving Memory of our Departed Brother, Brian Lim Beng Choon

For an economic student, the term “opportunity cost” is one of the most familiar term that we use throughout our degree study in university. Consider this as a technical term or not, the meaning of opportunity cost, simply put, it refers to the second best alternative that we have to forgo in effect of choosing the first best alternative. Basically, this is the term used in decision making. For me, this term is also applicable in life, apart from our decision making in an organization. We can either choose God, whom bring life to us and lead us to a happy joy or the devil that brings ultimate destruction that lead us to death. If one were to choose, as the term opportunity cost here suggest by choosing the best alternative, we as a human, we will definitely choose God that send us abundant blessing.

Recall Satan’s promise to Eve when he tempted her to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit: “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). “That is,” the tempter was saying, “you can decide for yourself what is good and what is evil. You can be your own boss.” This is the sin of pride: the illusion of self-sufficiency, the illusion that a person can be his own source of his fulfillment. This is the root of all sin.

We are living in this secular world, the world that blur our vision of God. Religion might not be the first priority in life as a young adult like me, what concerns me the most, perhaps, getting a good job with a good salary, good wife—beautiful, nice body & etc may be at the top of the list. However, we fail to recognize the relationship that we should have in life, that is the life with God, our creator. We fail to recognize that He can provide everything that we need in life. He is our creator, He create us out of His abundant love and blessings, of course, He also know that what we need in our life.

One may ask how can we deepen our relationship with God? The answer is simple: PRAYER. Prayer is the best way that we can communicate with God. We can leave all our sorrow to God, I guess this is the best way to deal with our inner feelings that make us feel so depress in life.

Today, as we pray for our brother who had passed away last week, it is also re-awakening for each one of us the importance of relationship. The importance of reaching out the love, the abundant blessing that we received from the lord, to the people out there. What is the greatest commandment of the Lord? I guess most of you would know the greatest command is “Love your God with all your heart and with all your being, with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself” (Lk10: 27-28).

In today's gospel on the Gospel reading of the Prodigal son, The Parable of the Prodigal Son is probably the best-known and most-loved of all of Jesus’ parables. It has been called “the pearl and crown of all the parables of Scripture.” It has even received the title Evangelium in Evangelio, “the Gospel within the Gospel.” Together let’s savor some of its richness. The younger of two sons asked for his share of his father’s property (Lk. 15:11–12). We know from Deuteronomy 21:17 that under Jewish law, the younger brother’s share would be half of what the elder brother would receive. This request by the younger son expresses a desire that has plagued us human beings from the beginning. I mean the desire for independence from God, the desire to be in charge of one’s own life.

That’s how it is with us and God. By His creation, God gives us a free will. When we begin to think we want to be free from God’s service and find our liberty somewhere else, God lets us make that vain attempt. Eventually we learn that in turning from God’s will we inevitably become slaves of our own selfish desires. Our God-given free will gives us our grandeur, but our misuse of that free will gives us our misery. Immediately, it seems, the younger son went into “a far country” and spent all he had. For us, says St. Augustine, “the far country” is forgetfulness of God. In the slavery of his own desires, the younger son used up all his resources in a vain attempt to find happiness.
A famine arose in that country, and the younger son was broke and hungry (Lk. 15:14) That prodigal son’s suffering in that far country is itself a parable of the suffering which sin always brings.
And then the man “came to himself”—opened his eyes to the truth about himself (Lk. 15:17).When we come to our true selves, the selves God created us to be, we have to come to God through His Son. As the Second Vatican Council reminds us, “Christ the Lord, . . . in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling” (Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, no. 22). Having come to his senses, the prodigal son decided to return to his father (Lk. 15:18). Why would he dare go back home? Probably because he knew he had once been a member of that family, and perhaps still was. When you and I turn away from our sin and back to God, we know we shall not be rejected. At our baptism we were adopted as sons and daughters of God, and nothing—not even our worst sins—can cancel that adoption.

Notice that the father welcomed back the prodigal son even before the son made his confession. Imagine the son’s surprise. And imagine his immediate awareness of how totally undeserving he was of such mercy! In our return to the Father, the more we receive his love, the more grievously do we look on our sins. Repentance is a continuing process: As we grow in understanding God’s forgiving love, we mourn that we have sinned against that love. When the saints urge us to bemoan our sins, they’re not talking about remorse—”why did I do such a thing?” No, indeed! Bemoaning our sins means sorrowing because of the suffering our sins inflicted on our Lord Jesus on the Cross. The more we know and love our Lord Jesus, the more we despise our sins.

The Church proclaims this parable to us, not to entertain us, but to hold up a mirror to us. Let us now reflect, in the prodigal son, can we see an image of ourselves? Who of us has not turned away from the Father? Who of us has not put great distance between ourselves and the Father, by our sins? Or take the scornful, self-righteous, unforgiving elder brother. Who of us has not harshly judged persons who grievously distort their own lives? Who of us has not withheld forgiveness—or at least been reluctant to grant it—to those who need our forgiveness?

In these and countless other ways, you and I too often wander off into far country and squander or grossly misuse God’s good gifts. That’s what sin is.
God grant that every time we go away from God, we will accept His grace to come to ourselves. Come to our senses, and turn back to the Father. His Son has made it perfectly clear that the Father is always waiting for us, always watching for us, infinitely eager to welcome us back home.