
In his book, “What’s So Amazing About Grace”, Phillip Yancey tells the story of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway grew up in a very devout evangelical family, yet there he never experienced the grace of Christ. He lived a libertine life that most of us would call “dissolute”…but there was no father, no parent waiting for him, and he sank into the mire of a graceless depression.
In Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Capital of the World”’ a Spanish Newspaper El Liberal, carried a poignant story about a father and his son. It went like this, A teen-aged boy, Paco, and his very wealthy father had a falling out, and the young man ran away from home. The father was crushed. After a few days, he realized that the boy was serious, so the father set out to find him. He searched high and low for five months to no avail.
Finally, in a last, desperate attempt to find his son, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read, “Dear Paco, Meet me at the Hotel Montana noon Tuesday. All is forgiven. I love you, Signed, Your Father. On Tuesday, in the office of Hotel Montana, over 800 Pacos showed up ,looking for love and forgiveness from their fathers.
What a magnet that ad was! Over 800 Pacos!! We all hunger for pardon. We are all “Pacos” yearning to run and find a father who will declare, “All is forgiven.”
Submitted by Fr. Joseph Dovari