Word of the Week

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Embraced: Epipipto (Gk.): meaning, “to fall into one's embrace”, or “fell upon his neck” as to take possession of someone in inspiration and impulse.

In Part Two of the CCC: The Celebration of the Christian Mystery, Chapter One opens up with Article One on the Liturgy as the Work of the Holy Trinity, and more specifically, with an emphasis on the Father as the Source and Goal of the Liturgy. It is in the opening paragraphs of this section that we find the most striking statement: “From the beginning until the end of time the whole of God’s work is a blessing” (CCC, 1079). This most provocative truth gives way to the reality that this blessing is an embrace from the Father at the dawn of creation. In its singular usage of the term embrace, the CCC provides for us the foundation necessary to value the importance of God’s embrace. The CCC states: “From the very beginning God blessed all living beings, especially man and woman. The covenant with Noah and with all living things renewed this blessing of fruitfulness despite man's sin which had brought a curse on the ground. But with Abraham, the divine blessing entered into human history which was moving toward death, to redirect it toward life, toward its source. By the faith of ‘the father of all believers’, who embraced the blessing, the history of salvation is inaugurated” (1080). Furthermore, noting that liturgy literally translates as “public work”, our own embrace of the blessing makes present God’s work in history.

The term epipipto can be found thirteen times in the New Testament. As there are variances to the context of this Greek term, I will consider its meaning in light of the Twenty –Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time and the lone gospel text devoted to the Prodigal Son found in Luke. I pause here to direct you to the Word of the Week on Prodigal for a more foundational understanding to this parable.

That being said, the term embraced itself is built upon the Old Testament understanding of God’s kinship with Israel that reveals his mercy (cf. Gen.33:4) and at once brings about the joys of covenant communion (cf. Gen. 45:14, 46:29) (cf. Hahn and Minch, 137). Within the drama of this most renowned parable is the inner-beauty of the kind of love that proceeds from the father’s heart. Note the whole of verse 20: “And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Lk.15:20). In the joy of seeing his son return, the father cannot contain himself and ‘in his compassion’ races to ‘embrace him’ and welcome him back into covenant harmony with the family. As this parable is an allegory into God the Father’s love for all of us, it reminds us that, just as  the father raced to greet his son, so does God the father seek us out waiting to enfold us with his embrace of forgiveness and mercy. For this reason, we ought to be dependent upon God the father for survival as the wayward son had become dependent upon his father for survival.

In addition to this spiritual poverty, what we see in this weeks reading of the Parable of the Prodigal Son is a parable about sacramental love; a love that has an outward expression communicating a deep interior reality. The father transcends the conventional understanding of love by showing his affection to his son when it is least anticipated, and in so doing, converses with love’s maxim: unconditional giving! Essentially, the standard of love set forth by Christ has as its center the unrestricted yes to charity.  

“Eternal Wisdom has embraced all that the Cross of Christ contains.”

--John Paul II

Primary Texts Consulted


•  Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.
•  Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.
• Hahn, Scott and Minch, Curtis. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament, RSV, 2nd ed. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010.

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