“We go away from him, but he does not go away from us. He waits for our return, he longs for our return; he cries over our misery and our betrayal of him and of ourselves, and the moment we appear in the distance, he is there waiting for us, rushing towards us to greet us, so that, when we come, we do not come as mendicants, we do not come as beggars, we do not have to come kneeling down before him who would stand there as a judge condemning us by his own righteousness. He rushes towards us, so that we can know that we are longed for, we are loved in our misery and in our sinfulness, not approved in our sinfulness, but loved with a love that never falters, never diminishes, that burns bright, that is perhaps more tragically deep than the quiet and peaceful love which a father can have for his son when there is nothing wrong in his life. This is, I believe, the best image of confession as an encounter with God, and there is nothing else in confession that matters. We, like the Prodigal Son, come in order to meet God from whom we have parted, whom we have rejected, whom we have discarded, and are met by a Father with open arms. This we must remember, because he is not meeting us as Judge but as Saviour.”