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After weeks
of studying the Old Testament, we have covered the first four Books of
Moses, but as we have another 45 books of the Old Testament to cover,
which will take us at least a couple more years, I think we need a break
from the study to give ourselves the opportunity to see a very important
period in the Church's life which has much to teach us on how to prepare
ourselves spiritually to truly find Christ. The important period I am
referring to is Great Lent, which is often described as a spiritual
journey having as its final destination Pascha, the Feast of all Feasts.
The purpose
of Great Lent is to strengthen and prepare us spiritually to understand
the meaning of the great and unique joy of the Resurrection and its
significance and meaning to our own life. Like all feasts, Pascha comes
around each year, but it is not just a commemoration of the new life
that shone forth from the grave two thousand years ago, it is also the
celebration of the new life given to each of us who believe in Christ, a
new life that was given to each of us on the day of our Baptism. In
theory we should be bathed in the Resurrection light and be shining
forth like Christ and the saints, but because of the weakness of our
human nature we constantly betray this "new life" we received at
baptism. We are consumed with our daily preoccupations and the cares of
this world. We fill our time with so many things that we must do that we
forget the true meaning of life and sink into a life void of Christ,
living as though he didn’t rise from the dead. Our life becomes a
meaningless journey and as we sink further and further into sin and in
the midst of our enjoying life we even forget that death looms over us
and might all of a sudden take us by surprise. Our new life we received
at baptism becomes buried under the mud of our various sins that the
light of the resurrection no longer shines in our hearts: it becomes so
dimmed that our life again resembles the “old life in darkness”.
But how do we
overcome the pulling magnet of this world and the media which constantly
teaches us that life means to be successful, to seek wealth, fame and
glory, a social status which is identified by our home, our car and the
brand names of our clothes and accessories? These according to the world
are the things that will give us fulfilment and happiness in life and a
sense of security and pleasure. This according to the Gospel is the
broad way, but Christ tells us to choose the narrow way, the difficult
and often painful road of suffering which leads to genuine and eternal
happiness. It is not an easy choice especially in our age where the
world at large considers suffering for Christ as something foolish and
illogical. It needs a certain amount of faith to begin this journey of
return and only if someone has experienced at sometime in his life the
“new man” in him can he understand that there is at the end of the road
a genuine happiness that has nothing to do with this material world.
The Church
fully understands human weakness and knows that the individual cannot
undertake this difficult journey of return on his own and is ready to
give to each the strength and support that will help them safely reach
the desired destination. This is where Great Lent comes in: it is the
help extended to us by the Church. It is a period of repentance with
prayer and fasting, which if followed with obedience, will permit us to
experience Pascha not as a day where we celebrate just the historical
event of the Lord’s Resurrection and an excuse to eat drink and be
merry, but as the renewal of our Baptism with the reburying of the “old
man” in us and the rebirth of the “new man” bathed once more with the
light of the Resurrection.
Thus Lent
helps us to regain that which we received at baptism and which we
constantly lose due to worldly distractions and careless living. Great
Lent is our return journey back to Christ and the Kingdom of God, but
this return will not happen if we do not take Lent seriously. The help
the Church gives during this period is not a set of negative rules and
obligations that she imposes on us. Many people observe Lent as a law
imposed on them by the Church and if they don't observe it to the
letter, God will punish them. If we see Lent in this way then we have
lost the meaning before we even begin. The purpose of Lent is not to
deprive us of certain foods or to force upon us certain obligations, but
to soften our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the
spirit. It is an atmosphere into which we voluntary enter and which for
seven weeks penetrates and saturates our entire life. Lent needs a state
of mind where the person acknowledges his alienation from God and
hungers to re-establish the lost relationship and communion with him.
But this state of mind does not happen overnight: it needs its own
preparation. So before the actual beginning of Lent the Church announces
its approach and invites us to enter into the period of pre-Lenten
preparation.
The Church knows
how we humans cannot change abruptly from one spiritual state of mind to
another and need time to adjust and prepare. This pre-Lenten preparation
began last Sunday with our entrance into the period known as the
Triodion. The Triodion is the service Book used by the Church from last
Sunday and continues throughout Great Lent until the last service on
Holy and Great Saturday night just before the Resurrection service,
which then begins a new period in the Church's cycle known as the
Pentecostarion. The name Triodion takes its name from the odes sung
during Mattins on weekdays of this period. At all other times of the
year a collection of short hymns called the canons are made up of eight
odes or canticles. Now instead of eight there are only three odes - thus
trio for three plus odes make up the word Triodion. It is the book of
Lent, but it begins with four Sundays before the onset of Great lent
with themes that will help us to prepare for that spiritual journey that
will lead us to that that great feast of Pascha. The period of the
Triodion is a period of abstinence, temperance and self-restraint: a
time for increased spiritual warfare with the purpose of purifying both
the soul and body. For each of the four Sundays before Lent, the
liturgical themes are based on the Gospel readings of that Sunday. Last
Sunday, being the first, began with the Gospel reading of the Parable of
the Publican and the Pharisee.
The main
message of the Parable is repentance and that is why it was chosen as
the Gospel reading to open the new season of the Triodion. It is telling
us that it is time to repent and change the way we live and the purpose
of this change is to live the life of the Cross so that we may meet
Christ.
For the
Church the whole of a person’s life is a time of repentance, but because
we are careless and lazy in spiritual matters and because we have to
defeat and overcome the resistance of our rebellious flesh which doesn’t
want to be subjected and bound to the spiritual life, the Church
proclaims repentance and calls us to battle even just for this short
period before Easter. Before repentance our bearings and affections
relate to our fallen state, or us St. Paul say, to the “old man” or the
man according to the flesh. Our whole life is wasted satisfying the
desires and pursuits of our egocentric self. These bearings and
affections lead man to eternal death because they distance him from God.
The Church’s call for repentance means to destroy the old self which is
governed by the passions and transform these bearings and affections
into a living communion with God and man.
The period
of the Triodion, and especially the four preparatory Sundays, wants to
make us aware of the true meaning of life. Our detachment from God is
detachment from life, and only where God is can we find eternal life.
Where God is absent there is death – first of the soul and then of the
body. Thus if we want to live we must change our way of life, we must
repent. Lent teaches us how to change and offers us the tools which will
help us to do battle against the resistance generated by our carnal
desires. These tools are fasting, prayer, charity and almsgiving, love
for others expressed in practical form, by works of compassion and
forgiveness and our participation in the Sacraments of the Church. By
following this new way of living we partake of the Lord’s Passion. By
putting to death the passions and our life according to the flesh, we
partake of the Cross and are resurrected into a new life with God. By
walking a new path in life we become new people and our prototype is
none other than Christ who is our salvation. This u-turn of both the
body and soul, in search of God’s grace for help so that we may follow
in Christ’s footsteps by becoming dead and resurrected, is the purpose
of the Triodion and especially of Great Lent.
In the
Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee Christ gives us to understand
what is and what is not repentance. Repentance is the first step on the
road to salvation. It means to acknowledge that our life on earth is a
temporary abode: a life in exile from the Paradise of Bliss which we
lost when Adam fell from grace. Christ, through his Death and
Resurrection, re-opened the gates of paradise for man and our time on
earth is given to us to strive to re-enter this paradise by living not
according to the lustful desires of the flesh, but according to the
spirit. St. Paul says “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be
spiritually minded is life and peace”.
The Greek
word for repentance is metanoia and means to have a change of mind, but
it means more than just a short term feeling of remorse: it entails a
complete change in lifestyle to a way of life according to the will of
God. At the dawning of a new era, John the Baptist, preparing the people
for the coming of the Messiah, preached “Repent for the Kingdom of God
is at hand”. When Christ came he preached the same message and through
his teaching he continually pounded the message of repentance showing us
how necessary it is for our salvation. This message of repentance has
never stopped; it was taken up by the Apostles, and the Church, through
the liturgical hymns and sermons and other means at her disposal,
continually reminds us that we must repent of our sinful ways if we want
to live eternally with Christ.
The four
Sundays before Lent each have important teachings to prepare us and put
us in the proper frame of mind that we must have to reap the spiritual
benefits of Great Lent. The first two Sundays teach us repentance and
humility which are interdependent, the third Sunday teaches us about
love for all people and the fourth, just before the onset of Great Lent,
teaches us the importance of forgiveness and how to pray and fast in a
manner that will help us reap the rewards of our effort so that our time
in the spiritual arena of Great Lent will not have been in vain.
The
spiritual teachings of the first two Sundays are presented to us through
Parables. Every parable requires that we change our behaviour, our
thoughts, our beliefs, in fact our complete way of life if we want to be
saved and live eternally with God. To understand all parables we must
first identify ourselves with the characters, because one of them is me.
Jesus is talking directly to me and he wants me to understand how
distant my life is from God. Thus, in the first of these Parables read
last Sunday, we are asked to search our heart and to identify ourselves
with either the Publican or the Pharisee. This does not mean that the
identification needs to be exactly the same: in the story there are
elements that refer to fallen human nature and as we are all part of
this fallen nature then naturally there are some common elements that we
can all identify with.
The Parable
speaks of two men who come to the temple to pray. The Pharisee was a
member of a religious group who, as puritans of the Jewish faith,
zealously kept the letter of the Law. He believes that he is an
exemplary example to others of what a good Jew must be and because he
was such a perfect Jew who had never made a mistake he never felt the
need for repentance. He goes to the temple to pray, but his prayer is
not a thanksgiving but a proclamation of his righteousness. He is so
self-assured and proud of himself that he is perfect that he justifies
himself before God that he is righteous, and not like other men who are
extortioners, unjust and adulterers and seeing the Publican who was
standing at a distance, he adds “and especially not like that Publican”
whom he considered as the worst kind of person – the scum of the earth.
Publicans
were tax collectors, but a lot worse than Inland Revenue. They bought
from the Romans, the rights to collect the taxes from the people, but
instead of collecting the proper taxes that the Romans asked for, they
burdened the people with double or triple amounts and were therefore
very much hated and held in contempt as being the lowest of all men.
The Pharisee
cannot see his own wretched condition; he cannot see his own sins, but
only the sins of other men. He keeps to the letter of the law by fasting
twice a week and contributes to the temple according to what the law
tells him to contribute. He thanks God not for his beneficence, but
because he is different from everyone else. All other people are
extortioners, unjust and adulterers. He judges, insults and humiliates
everyone except himself.
In contrast
to the Pharisee, the Publican, stood afar off, and because he recognized
his sins and felt his unworthiness before God, couldn’t lift his eyes up
to heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a
sinner. The Publican does not act or pretend to be good so that he can
gain the respect and admiration of the people. He presents himself as
unjust, a money shark who extorts the people of their living, someone
with an unclean and polluted soul. He doesn’t pretend to be pious,
because he isn’t. He says the truth no matter how bitter that truth is.
With such feelings not only does he humble himself, but breaks down
before God and with total remorse for his sinful life, he yearns for
Christ’s forgiveness and for a new beginning and inner relationship with
him.
Entering the
temple, he stands afar off, in other words he avoids every prominent
position unlike the Pharisee who probably stood in the centre to be seen
be all. The Publican doesn’t want to place himself in the public eye; he
has no desire for public recognition: he stood afar off because he felt
unclean and unworthy of entering further into the temple. He prays with
a contrite heart, with tears and groanings, he beats his breast and asks
for the greatest of all things, for God’s mercy. His continual prayer is
“God be merciful to me a sinner.” His passion for wealth has been
transformed into passion for God’s mercy and this is repentance.
The central
message of the Parable is repentance and humility, but it is interwoven
which warnings to beware of the sin of pride. Like I said earlier we
need to identify with the characters of the Parable, but can we truly
say that we can identify ourselves with the Publican; do we have his
humility and tears? For most of us the answer is no so the only other
character in the story is the hypocritical and cruel Pharisee. We may
not like him and certainly we can’t imagine ourselves resembling him
even the slightest, but if we look deep and truly examine ourselves
there are elements of him in all of us. We may not even recognise the
similarities because pride is a devious sin and has a way of concealing
itself in righteousness. Good is not always good. We judge what is good
by our fallen human nature, yet this good might be completely different
to what the Gospel teaches and if it is different then it is not really
good, but evil dressed up as good.
This can sound
confusing and even a paradox, but that is because we don’t properly
understand how our fallen human nature is mixed with evil. The good
taught by Christ always involves humility and if our good thoughts and
actions are not the result of humility then they are not really good
because somewhere in all the good that we do we will also find pride and
a feeling of self-satisfaction that we have done good. For example, when
we do something good do we not want recognition for what we have done,
if we help someone do we not want at least a thank you, when we fast do
we not let others know that we are doing our duty as good Christians?
Let’s us not forget that the Pharisee was a good Jew; he observed all
the requirements of the Law. For us also, if we fulfil the requirements
of the Church will we not also consider ourselves as good Christians?
When we talk with others who have no idea about religious matters do we
not take pride that we have a certain amount of knowledge and can
enlighten them. Somewhere in all that we do pride is always lurking and
hiding and ready to pop up its ugly head. If we assume that we are
spiritually strong enough to overcome pride then this is also a form of
pride. No matter how virtuous we have become, if there is still a little
pride in the background then our virtues have no value. Pride is the
hardest vice to overcome. It is the mother of all vices and the original
sin. It was pride that brought down Lucifer and his angelic order. It
was pride that brought about Adam’s exile from Paradise. That was why
Christ clothed himself with humility to reopen the gates of Paradise.
Humility is
the only thing that can overcome pride. That is why the Parable gives us
the two extremes – the Pharisee’s pride and the Publican’s humility. By
placing this Parable as the beginning of the Triodion the Church wants
to teach us that the first step on our journey to meet Christ is to
learn humility. This is easier said than done. Humility is the most
difficult of all virtues because in society the general understanding is
that humility is a sign of weakness. But God himself is humble and if we
want to follow in Christ’s footsteps we must also learn to be humble as
Christ said ‘Learn from me for I am meek and humble in heart’. It takes
a strong man to be humble. It is not just turning the other cheek; it
means to have Christ-like love, to love all people and to be able to
forgive them deep down in one’s heart, to be able to truly say, ‘forgive
them for they know not what they do’. Humility means not to blame others
for our own errors, not to look around and judge at what others do.
Can we
honestly say that if someone was to insult us in public as did the
Pharisee to the Publican, that we would not be offended, that we would
not be angered, that we would not verbally retaliate and give as good as
we got? Would we have feelings of sincere love for that person, would we
pray for that person and would we say in our hearts: “God forgive him
for he knows not what he does?”
Humility
means to become like Christ and to accept as Christ did before his
life-saving sacrifice on the Cross the spittings, the scourging, the
buffetings, the curses, the mocking, the crucifixion and death. As true
followers of Christ we must always be ready to suffer ridicule and
humiliation. Christ said that “The servant is not greater than his lord.
If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you;” but he also
said: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and
shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice,
and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.”
This
Sunday's Gospel reading is the Parable of the Prodigal Son which again
has repentance as its central theme and there are many elements of the
story that are similar to the Parable of the Publican and Pharisee.
Again there are two people which in this case are two sons who represent
mankind, but with the added character of the loving father who patiently
awaits for the Prodigal son to return to his bosom.
The Parable is as follows:
“The Lord said this parable: A certain man had two
sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the
portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his
living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together,
and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance
with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty
famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined
himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to
feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that
the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to
himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread
enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my
father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and
before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one
of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he
was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and
ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him,
Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more
worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring
forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and
shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and
let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again;
he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now his elder son
was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard
musick and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what
these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy
father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe
and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his
father out, and intreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo,
these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy
commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry
with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath
devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted
calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I
have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for
this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is
found.” (Luke 15:11-32)
As with the
previous parable we must first identify ourselves with the characters,
because one of them is me. Jesus is talking directly to me and he wants
me to understand how distant my life is from God. There are three main
characters in the story: the father, the eldest son and the youngest
son. We cannot be the father because he is God so we must identify
ourselves with one of the two sons. The question is which of the two do
we most resemble? The one starts off as a rebellious youth but through
humility discovers the meaning of love and the other seems to be good
and pious but is finally revealed as a false hypocrite. In the Parable
Christ brings together the various forms of human wastefulness. We can
say that the younger son is a symbol of the visible wastefulness and the
older brother is a symbol of the invisible wastefulness. The two sons
represent the two basic categories of men: those who want to live
without God in their lives and those who want to live a life in God.
With the
Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Lords want to reveal to us the wealth
of his love for man and to show the story of mankind which is
represented by the two sons. The younger son leaves the paternal home
and becomes prodigal, in other words reckless, but he is then humbled
and repents for what he did and enjoys the love and mercy of the Father.
The other son, the older of the two, appears to be near the Father, but
in reality is very distant from him, because he envies his brother, he
doesn’t obey the Father and insists on doing his own will which in the
end deprives him of the fathers banquet. Let’s then take a deeper look
at the parable.
The man
which the parable speaks of is God who, wanting to show his love for
mankind, took upon himself the human nature and became a man so that we
could become gods. With the two sons he wants to show the qualities of
the father; his very strong paternal love, which knows how to embrace,
to kiss, to accept and to forgive sinners. From this father the younger
son asks to be given his share of the inheritance. What is this
inheritance?
They are the
divine graces which the father has granted us so that we can be like
him. It is the image and likeness of God with which we were created
with: It is our very existence, the earth which God took and the breathe
that he breathed into it, the grace of the Holy Spirit which he placed
in us, the spiritual part of our existence with the possibility of
growing spiritually and becoming one with God. It is the gifts of wisdom
and prudence, the gift of discernment, the blessings we received at
Baptism, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the spiritual virtues, and above
all the gift of our free will. The younger son wants all the gifts which
he believes are rightfully his and they are as long as he remains in
God, but he wants to enjoy them without any strings attached to God and
his divine protection.
The journey
of the younger son is the journey of the fallen man, a journey towards
death, to a real hell, because it is a journey of rejection and
abandonment of God. It begins from the moment where the younger son asks
to leave the paternal home and the presence of his father. And when we
say to leave, it doesn’t mean to leave to another place, but to another
way of life: to not be under the guardianship of God and without having
to observe his commandments, which are life. The younger son believed
that he could by himself become a god. He thought he was capable of
everything. He made bad use of the divine grace of independence, of the
freedom that God granted us so that we can choose a way of life with him
of without him.
That is why
God the Father doesn’t try to stop his son from leaving, because he gave
him that freedom and also because he doesn’t want near him people who
don’t love him and who think that they don’t need him. He leaves them to
mature in their own time, to understand their inadequacy, to test and
experience their freedom and by themselves to return.
So the
Prodigal Son, the fallen man, gathers everything, the divine graces, the
substance of the father, and departs from God’s way of life, from the
personal relationship with him and begins a different life without God.
He is now interested in living a biological life, and to satisfy the
desires of his material existence. By abandoning God, the sinful
passions now take his place. These now govern and direct him and he
becomes enslaved to them. His substance, the graces which God gave him,
are scattered and wasted on the various passions so that he can enjoy
the pleasures of sin. But the pleasures are only momentarily and don’t
last. As soon as man partakes of these temporary pleasures they are gone
and he desires more. The devil doesn’t allow complete fullness and
satisfaction so that man does not stop sinning.
The Gospel
reading talks about a great famine and the Prodigal being in great want.
This is a spiritual hunger brought about by being deprived of God. All
the foods that satisfy the body are like husks that the swine eat if the
“Bread of Life” is absent. The body is nourished but the soul dies of
starvation and then follows the decay and death of the body. Because the
sensual life does not satisfy man, he feels the hunger and the
bereavement of being deprived of God and having wasted the divine
graces. Nothing remains of the spiritual and divine. His deprivation,
his loss, is complete. The Greek word for prodigal is άσωτος which not
only means someone who leads a reckless life but also someone who is
deprived of salvation ά-σωτος. Deprived of God and the relationship with
him, deprived of the blessing to love and be loved, his life, his whole
nature is black and destitute.
No one can
replace the emptiness of God. Without God he is only flesh that decays
and dies. He becomes similar to the animals and more rather like the
pigs in the story. His life has because a pig’s life, in other words
full of passions and unclean. To this he was prompted by the citizens of
the country that were far away from God, in other words the demons. To
this place is led the man who sees the Lord’s yoke as heavy. He becomes
subject to the yoke of the passions and falls to the level of an animal.
His glory and his honour which God had granted him have been taken away
by the swine.
Where he was
once rich and self-sufficient, he now has to find work to survive, but
can only find work looking after swine. When Jesus says in the Parable
that he looked after swine, he was trying to say that this occupation
was the most humiliating of all professions. Firstly we must remember
that the Jews were forbidden to eat pork, so for the Jewish nation there
was no need for rearing swine and for a decent Jew, rearing a herd of
swine was degrading. The Prodigal son did not become a shepherd of sheep
like the Patriarchs of Israel were, but a shepherd of greedy, noisy and
filthy pigs.
In a state
of spiritual and bodily hunger, the Prodigal son tries to fill his belly
with the husks the pigs fed on. He has reached rock bottom and
despondency has taken over his very existence. Despondency is a state
which the fathers consider the greatest danger for the soul. Someone in
this state cannot see anything good or positive and his thoughts become
negative and pessimistic. It leads to disbelief in God and brings about
a spiritual suicide, a death to the soul.
It is while
in this state that the Prodigal Son suddenly came to his senses. He
realized and acknowledged his fall from grace; he admitted to himself
that the life which he once thought was true life was only a fool’s life
and that true life was what he once had in the bosom of his father.
The
beginning of repentance is mourning and regret. It is the beginning of
salvation. Now the Prodigal son begins to understand that his
disposition to be at a distance from his father was the counteraction of
his carnal nature to not be subject to God and his will. Because he gave
in to his self-ruling material and earthly nature, he was enslaved by it
and reached as far as hell. Now that he was dead and lost, he begins to
understand the cost of his departure and dissociation from God the
father. His only salvation is “I will arise and go to my father”. No
matter how far he sank into debauchery and a reckless life, no matter
that he was living in hell, inside him the image of his father was never
ever destroyed. His thirst to return to the father was a leftover of the
original way of life he had with love and communion with the father.
As he
prepares to return he has to battle with the last remnants of his pride
and accept humility. How could he return in his wretched condition, to
the house he left in contempt, to the father he knows must have suffered
greatly on his departure, to the brother who he envied because he stayed
at home and was victorious. How could he return broke without a cent in
his pocket, without shoes, without clothing, without a ring on his
finger, unrecognizable, changed from the slavery, the hunger, and the
scorching sun and very dirty from the filthy swine. Wouldn’t it give
opportunity for his brother and neighbours and even the servants to show
their superiority, their righteousness? What would they all say? Would
he not be an object to be ridiculed? How could he kneel before his
ageing father who he didn’t even say goodbye to when he left? And he
left like a prince but would be returning like a worm. How could he now
drink of the water from the place he once spat? How could he return to
the home to which he had now become a complete stranger? These are
thought that probably went through his mind because he still didn’t know
the full extent of the Father’s forgiving love. He accepted his guilt
with self condemnation, but did he have the strength to overcome the
humiliation of walking home with his tail between his legs?
Now the
father seems excessively compassionate. With his silent love he awaits
with great patience until his return. And seeing him still a long way
off, runs and completely embraces him and kisses him to show him that he
is welcomed and accepted, not as a servant, but as a son. With his kiss
he purifies him and sanctifies him.
In spite of
the fathers love, the Prodigal, who is now saved, confesses he sin: “I
have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to
be called thy son.” It is as though he is saying; “I am to blame for
everything.” He doesn’t throw the blame on his father whom he originally
thought had him follow strict rules and because he felt pressured
decided to leave. He now believes that he alone was guilty and avoids
making excuses to justify himself. The father’s commandments now seem as
an easy and light burden.
The father
re-establishes him to his original position as a son and dresses him
with the original robe. The English text says the “best robe” which is
in fact a wrong translation. In Greek it is (την πρώτη στολή) the first
robe or the original robe which properly interpreted means the first
body that Adam had before the fall with the divine graces befit for a
son. He does not make him a servant, but a beloved son. He offers him a
ring on his hand which is the betrothal of the future life and the
kingdom and is a sign that he begins again his relationship with the
heavenly bridegroom. The ring also signifies his reinstatement as a son
and heir because rings were worn by free men, by lords and masters, by
someone with authority and power and not by servants.
If the
beginning of repentance is mourning and regret, the end is the
reinstatement to the paternal home. A new life begins of love and
communion with God and other men according to the image of the Holy
Trinity. Man is now a partaker of the life of Christ. The shoes on his
feet signify the return of the Spiritual graces of Baptism, the
spiritual wealth and power of a son and heir because servants had to go
barefooted. They also represent the authority to preach the Gospel,
because a Christian is he who is of benefit to his neighbour. It is also
the power to step upon snakes and scorpions, in other words upon Satan.
And being given all these gifts, the Prodigal Son is given the greatest
of all gifts: “the fatted calf”, the Body and Blood of Christ, who was
sacrificed to give us life. Now he is delivered from the famine and
starvation because he will be nourished with the “Fatted Calf”, who
“being ever eaten, never is consumed; But sanctifieth them that partake
thereof”. It is the food and sustenance for all who remain in the
father’s house.
The
Criterion which the Parable gives us to analyse the two sons, who
represent all of us, is the beloved relationship with our Father which
is in heaven and with each and every man who is our brother. Can we love
God the Father with all our being and can we receive within us every man
without exception? This is what will save us.
The younger
son reached the point of death, because he wounded and rejected this
relationship. He returned to life when he repented, confessed and
re-established his relationship with his father. The older son outwardly
appeared to have preserved his relationship with the father, but in
reality it was non-existent. As it tells us in the Parable, when his
brother returned he was in the fields and when he came close to the
house and was informed of the great joy in the house he became angry
“and would not go in”. If he was a true son of the father, who is
all-embracing love, if he was the image of the father then he should
have been happy and should have expressed his love also. But he didn’t
do it because inside him were passions secretly hiding until a moment
when they could manifest themselves. Inside him were the passions of
jealousy, of hatred and pride. These confused his spirit and clouded his
reasoning. He loved only himself and thought of himself as righteous,
incapable of making a mistake. What was missing in him was humility. His
father rejoiced at the wellbeing of his son but he was angry and desired
that he should be punished; he would have taken great joy so see his
father send away his younger brother. Thus in reality he was not in
communion with the father, he was not associated with him in any way.
The younger
son was saved by his feeling that he still had a father. The older son
doesn’t even call him father. His relationship with the father is not
based on internal love but on a formality. “Lo, these many years do I
serve thee”; he worked the inheritance which was his, but he had no love
either for his father or for his brother. He claims that he never
disobeyed the father at any time, yet now that the father pleads with
him to show love and compassion for his long lost brother he disobeys
and refuses to enter the house. He doesn’t even recognize him as a
brother, but says “this thy son”. The story shows us that someone can
appear to be close to God; he regularly attends Church and boasts that
he observes all that the Church requires of him, but if his relationship
with God and his fellow men is not based on love then he doesn’t live
according to the image of God. The Church is a community of people that
love each other.
At no point
in the parable does the older son appear to accept the fact that he made
a mistake and then to confess it and receive forgiveness. For everything
the father is to blame, because he received back his child, because he
killed the fatted calf, because he never ever gave him a kid that he
might make merry with his friends. He smears his brother’s name by
pointing out that he had devoured his living with harlots, he was not
interested in his brother’s wellbeing but in the waste of wealth which
wasn’t even his. He humiliates and dishonours his brother to show his
own superiority and excellence. He self-excluded himself from the
father’s paradise of love because he had no love. He remained without
salvation and became himself ά-σωτος – prodigal, because he didn’t “come
to himself” that is, he didn’t come to his senses and as the fathers of
the Church say: for the pure in heart God is light that enlightens and
for the impure fire that burns.
So where do
we find ourselves? Which of the two do we represent? May God find us
worthy “to come to our senses” that we may make the right choices so
that we might not be deprived of the father’s house and the banquet of
the Fatted Calf.
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