I have been lately re-reading Henri Nouwen’s Return of the Prodigal Son, and it seems that the moment for this is 
right at last. I read it once about ten years ago, and though I was edified by it, I think I was not in an interior spiritual “place” wherein I could fully benefit from its insights. Through my present reading (which so far is only the first few chapters) and prayer, a little more of the light of Heaven has shone upon me, and I’d like to share some of that with you. Perhaps much of what I say is not news to you, and you’ve been living it for years, but for someone who often wrestles with God as I do, it is something through which the Lord “gives me rest” (see my previous post).
I’m not sure even how to begin this, but perhaps I’ll just say that if you have ever been a sinner you ought to read this book. It is not an exegetical commentary on the Gospel parable, though it does offer insights into the text itself. It is more a glimpse into the Heart of the Father and the tragedy/salvation of the son, and as such it is the story of our own life and relation to God. The return of prodigal sons and daughters, and the compassionate embrace of their loving Father, can perhaps be summed up in this line from the prologue of the book: “I have to kneel before the Father, put my ear against his chest and listen, without interruption, to the heartbeat of God.”
As Nouwen describes his own struggles and failures and gradual awareness of the Father’s love for him, I see reflections of my own life. As he describes the Prodigal Son’s rehearsal of his repentance, he shows us what we may be like in our inadequate understanding of God: “[He] tells himself that he has lost the dignity to be called ‘son,’ and he prepares himself to accept the status of a ‘hired man’ so that he will at least survive. There is repentance, but not a repentance in the light of the immense love of a forgiving God. It is a self-serving repentance that offers the possibility of survival… It is like saying: ‘Well, I couldn’t make it on my own, I have to acknowledge that God is the only resource left to me. I will go to God and ask forgiveness in the hope that I will receive a minimal punishment and be allowed to survive’ … One of the greatest challenges in the spiritual life is to receive God’s forgiveness. There is something in us humans that keeps us clinging to our sins and prevents us from letting God erase our past and offer us a completely new beginning. Sometimes it even seems as though I want to prove to God that my darkness is too great to overcome. While God wants to restore me to the full dignity of sonship, I keep insisting that I will settle for being a hired servant.”
After bringing all this into prayer, it seemed as if the Father opened to my awareness something of his own heart, something that I’ve always longed for but which I’ve been afraid to hear, or even more afraid might not be true after all. But I finally discovered in a personal way something that is basic to Christianity: The Father loves me because I am his son. The Father doesn’t love me because I have done good, and He doesn’t hate me because I have done evil. I have done both good and evil in my life, but the Father loves me because I am his son. This may seem standard fare to you, but for me it had the force of revelation.
This bond can never be broken and will last for all eternity. God has made a commitment to me that He will not break. It may be that I strain this relationship and render it unfruitful because of my sins, and I may need purification or even punishment to correct my waywardness and pave the way for my return. But I will always be a son of the Father, and as such will always be loved by Him, and our eternal communion in love and joy will always be sought and willed by Him. He revealed this to us even before the advent of his only-begotten Son in this world, as we read in Psalm 88(89): “My truth and love shall be with him… he will say to Me: ‘You are my Father, my God’ … I will keep my love for him always; with him my covenant shall last… If his sons forsake my law and refuse to walk as I decree… I will punish their offenses with the rod, I will scourge them on account of their guilt. But I will never take back my love… I will never violate my covenant or go back on the word I have spoken” (vv. 25-35).
In the midst of the comforting assurance of the Father’s love for me—not conditioned by my good or bad actions, but based solely on the fact of my sonship—I found myself rather unexpectedly thanking Him for my baptism. It didn’t take much reflection for me to realize that this was because baptism is the source of my sonship. Immersion in the grace of baptism made me a “son in the Son”; it was pure gift, given before I could even think to have merited it, before even being able to choose one way or another. It was a loving act of the Father’s initiative that forever constituted me as his son. Nothing and no one can ever take this away from me. I have a Father and a heavenly home to which I belong. Perhaps many people do not realize what a tremendous gift baptism really is.
(Additionally, because I am a son in the Son, not only is his Father my Father, but his Mother is my Mother too. Her maternal task is to pray for us and protect us and to lead us along the path to our true home, to know who our Father is, and who our Lord and Savior is, so that we can live as sons and daughters of God.)
All this got me to reflect on the (often) tragic foolishness of delaying the baptism of children. The tired old argument goes that when they are old enough to make their own decisions about their lives, they can choose whether or not they want to be baptized, and so baptism shouldn’t be imposed on them before they can make an act of faith—as if it were a mere rite of passage or some optional ceremony. A theological misunderstanding held by many is that baptism is merely an external rite of ratification of one’s faith. Some Christian denominations don’t even require it, but only recommend it, more or less like icing on the cake. In the case of infant or child baptism the opposite is true. It is a conscious decision of faith that ratifies what has already happened in baptism.
This is because it is precisely the Trinitarian grace active in the sacrament of baptism that constitutes one as a child of God—it effects a profound change in the very being of the one baptized, creating an identity and a relationship to God that the person did not have before. Contrary to popular sentiment, we are not children of God merely because we happen to exist. Scripture tells us that we must become children of God. Jesus Himself made it clear that we are not all automatically children of God. “If God were your Father, you would love me… You are of your father the devil…” (Jn. 8:42-44). In the parable of the weeds and the wheat, Jesus speaks of “the sons of the evil one” (Mt. 13:38), so there are those who are children of God and those who are not.
This means if you deny your babies baptism, you are depriving them of a Father and hence of a homeland. We are born into a foreign land, the progeny of those who were cast out of Paradise. We enter this world in desperate need of being claimed by Someone who can give us an imperishable name and inheritance. Do parents wait until their children decide whether or not they want them to be their parents, and then withhold food, clothing, and shelter from them until they can make that informed decision? Of course not; they give their children whatever is good for them before they can provide for themselves. If they do so with material things, why not all the more with spiritual? Should parents wait until their children are sufficiently exposed to the poison and corruption of the world so as to preclude any decision for baptism—withholding divine grace from them, which could have enabled them to choose the Lord? This is the worst form of child abuse there is! Should not children be granted the free gift of God’s grace and divine adoption from the earliest moments of their lives? A parent can to nothing more eternally beneficial for a child than to immerse it in the saving waters of baptism (“baptism saves you”—1Peter 3:21) and make it a son or daughter of God.
As I said above, the bond between God and his son or daughter (adopted through baptism) cannot be broken. God makes a covenant with the child from the moment of baptism, and He will always honor his commitment. God is henceforth that child’s Father and will always recognize the child as his son or daughter, and therefore there will always be a place for them in the Father’s house, and He will welcome them home even if they stray far from Him.
Jesus said that when they finally enter Heaven, “the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father” (Mt. 13:43). Their Father, not just “the” Father. He is their Father because of the specific and personal relationship He established with them from the moment of their baptism, and which they then lived out in the course of their lives. He is not some generic universal spirit of paternity. He is the Father of those who have become his children.
I hope I haven’t belabored the point, but having discovered in a deeper way the liberating and consoling truth that God loves me precisely because I am his son and therefore has a special commitment to me (and I to Him), it behooves us to make as many sons and daughters of God as we can. Parents, baptize those babies! Don’t leave them spiritual orphans. Despite your best efforts, you cannot wholly protect them from the world, the flesh, and the devil until they are “old enough” to seek baptism, and you are exposing them to spiritual dangers you can’t even see when you refuse to make them members of God’s household. Hand them over to the Father now, and He will make them his own. Even if later in life they would repudiate their faith or baptism, they cannot sever the filial bond, and it is precisely that unbreakable bond which provides the best possibility for their eventual return.
I’m setting aside the theological casuistry that inevitably arises from such a topic, concerning the fate of the unbaptized and all that. What we know for sure is that God wants all of us to be saved; He wants his house filled with his adopted sons and daughters. Jesus commanded that all nations be “baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19). “Now they were bringing even infants to Him… and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called to them saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them…’” (Lk. 18:15-16). Yes, do bring the infants to Him and do not hinder them, for they were created to be children of God.
Let us settle for nothing less than full divine sonship, and let us deprive no one of this indispensable baptismal grace. The Father will always be waiting with open arms for the souls that are thus indelibly marked with that which makes them heirs of the Kingdom. He will never withhold his love and mercy from his own sons and daughters.
