Tomorrow's Gospel passage is Luke 15, the parable of the Prodigal Son. We may think we know the story because we've heard it a million times. But the story is really about us. And how well do we know ourselves? Have we learned the parable's lessons?
Pope John Paul II teaches profoundly on the parable of the prodigal in his encyclical Dives in Misericordia (The Mercy of God), published in 1980. Pretty much all of what I have to say about the parable is from his teaching.
The parable is so powerful because it parallels so closely with the life of human beings at all times and in all places throughout history. The prodigal son demands the inheritance from his father, and then takes it with him on a journey in search of some real advaneture. In other words, what drives the prodigal son's rebellion is his hubris, or pride -- his belief that even though he has nothing that did not come to him from his father, he knows better how to use it.
So he spends it on a "life of dissipation." In other words, he spends all his riches, given to him by his father, on endeavors that starve his wealth and his health, rather than increase and improve them.
We might relate.
We think we know how to use everything that we have been given in life -- our bodies, our minds, our gifts and abilities, our life itself -- better than God does, even though everything that we have came from Him. But our favorite word is "my." It's my body, my right, my decision, my money, my house, my car, etc. The only time we don't like the word "my" is when it is followed by some word like "responsibility." Then it is usually someone else's.
The prodigal son had a ver yclear understanding of what was "his," and a very clear view of how best to use it, until times got tough. Notice his father did not chase him down and wag his finger at the son, saying "Seeeeee I told you so."
Rather:
When he had freely spent everything,
a severe famine struck that country,
and he found himself in dire need.
The father did not have to preach. The natural consequences of the son's freely chosen rebellion was that he encountered a world outside his father's house that could not give him what he needed to survive. Forget happiness or comfort or peace. He needed to survive.
Sometimes it is only that that drives us to God. We thought we could find happiness anywhere but through Him, and with Him, and in Him. And when we discover what an unforgiving place a world without Him actually is, and how starved we are for anything that actually makes life worth living, that's when we go back to Him.
'How many of my father's hired workers
have more than enough food to eat,
but here am I, dying from hunger.
I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him,
"Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I no longer deserve to be called your son;
treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers."'
But by then we believe, as did the prodigal son, that we no longer deserve anything the Father would give us. And in a way we may be correct about that. But what we are wrong about is that God cares to hold it against us.
As the prodigal son will discover, when he returns.
(As tomorrow is Sunday and I go easy on myself, I will cover the Father's response on Monday.)
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