The Third Sunday of the Great Lent

Repentance in Christianity is different from any other repentance. It is the return of the son to his Father and the Father falling on the neck of His son to embrace him and kiss him (Lk. 15:20). This is the gospel reading of the third Sunday of the Great Lent.

The Father’s paternity to us is not because of our righteousness, but because of His paternity to His children, especially the sinners. The Father’s paternity for us challenges all our sins, our failures, our betrayal of His love and our mistreatment of His Name.

The practical exercise of this week is simple. Do not permit this week to go by without a true repentance and resorting to the Father’s embrace. Examine this in your chamber and taste the Father’s embrace and His kisses which are reserved only for those who repent. This is the week of repentance in the Father’s bosom, the repentance of the whole Church—the communal repentance.

Quote: Let us not look down on those who return from a distant land, because we were also in a distant land, as Isaiah teaches. “To them that dwelled in the region of the shadow of death, light has risen.” There is a distant region of the shadow of death, but we, for whom the Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord, live in the shadow of Christ. The church therefore says, “Under His shadow I desired and sat down.”

Quote Author: St. Ambrose of Milan, Exposition on the Gospel according to St. Luke 7.213–14

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