INSIGHTS ON THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON

SATURDAY, SECOND WEEK OF LENT   

Micah 7:14-15,18-20; Ps 103:1-4,9-12; Lk 15:1-3,11-32

Coming back to Life from Death

The Lord uses the parable of the prodigal son to teach us about spiritual reality and our relationship with God. The story is set in the temporal realm, with material goods and relationships that have deeper meanings than what is easily discernible. The important relationship in the story is that of the father and the son. This is at the centre of the parable and draws out the core lesson of the parable. Within our temporal realm and life, the father-son relationship provides an analogy for our relationship with God, although not perfectly. There are many imperfect examples of this relationship we are aware of in our vicinity; these imperfect relations between fathers and sons are not our interest. The parable rests on the fact that, given a natural relationship between a father and his son, there comes a time when the son separates from his father to establish himself as an independent unit, and subsequently, a family. The first problem that comes to our mind with the prodigal son is his impetuousness in leaving the confines of his father to establish himself as a distinct unit. “A man had two sons. The younger said to his father, “Father, let me have the share of the estate that would come to me.” So, the father divided the property between them. A few days later, the younger son got together everything he had and left for a distant country where he squandered his money on a life of debauchery.”

Since the parable is meant to depict our relationship with God, the action of the younger son truly confirms our freedom to exercise our free will that God has given us from creation. Make no mistake about it, God truly wants us to exercise our free will, for it is a powerful and cherished gift from God. But the exercise of our free will ought to be in a responsible manner and within the confines of God’s will and loving providence over us. The younger son showed his ignorance of his father’s love, or his lack of appreciation, in moving far away from his father. The passage of Genesis on the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve also illustrates this ignorance or nonappreciation of God’s loving providence over them, which caused the tempter to lure them away from God’s word and presence. Another lesson, which is not so obvious in the parable, is that spiritual fatherhood of God does not elapse, but has provision for our maturity. When we mature as sons of God, we do not separate ourselves as distinct units but enter into cooperation with the Father as heirs of His glory, as the Father reassured the elder son: “My son, you are with me always, and all I have is yours.” This understanding is in harmony with our view on the proper exercise of our God-given free wills within the confines of God’s will and loving providence. The wrong exercise of his free will established the younger son outside the confines of the father’s loving will, but within his permissible will. Nothing is granted outside the Father’s loving will, but the experience of suffering and death as God forewarned Adam and Eve.

The knowledge of the father’s loving providence and its remembrance caused the younger son to embark on the return journey. The scriptures are replete with accounts of God’s loving will for us. By reading, meditating, and contemplating these accounts, we receive grace to start our journey back to God. “Then he came to his senses and said, “How many of my father’s paid servants have more food than they want, and here am I dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father and say: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of your paid servants.” So, he left the place and went back to his father.” The Gospel reveals the enduring love of God for each of us and his desire to have us back to Himself in an everlasting communion. The loving desire of God to have us back is expressed in the various difficulties, trials, and sufferings He sends our way, as the hunger that changed the mind of the prodigal son; these trials are for the purpose of our conversion. They constitute the crook by which the Eternal Shepherd leads his flock, as prophet Micah prayed: “With shepherd’s crook, O Lord, lead your people to pasture, the flock that is your heritage, living confined in a forest with meadow land all around. Let them pasture in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old.” May the Lord hear our prayers and bring us back from the forest of his permissive will to the meadow land of his loving will for us.

Let us pray: O God, who grant us by glorious healing remedies while still on earth to be partakers of the things of heaven, guide us, we pray, through this present life and bring us to that light in which you dwell. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.