The Prodigal Son: Parables upon Divine Mercy

II: The Prodigal Son: Parables upon Divine Mercy 

Luke xv. 1-32.

During these last days the Christ had given to the precepts of Christian abnegation a severer form, while at the same time He spoke more openly than ever before of the tender mercies of His Father.  Whether it was that He felt moved to display a greater sympathy for sorrowful mortals the longer He Himself suffered our infirmities or whether, seeing His end draw on apace, He was the more eager to hurry the strayed sheep within His fold,— at this period His words did indeed breathe an ineffable tenderness, His sighs and His tears were oftener wrung from Him, and the words of His Parables grow always more heart-stirring.  Those whereby the Master expressed the depth and breadth of Divine Love deserve to be distinguished from among all the rest.

He proffered them as an answer to fresh mutterings from the Scribes; for these sectaries, after their humiliation at the Pharisees' table, were become in Perea, as much as elsewhere, His implacable enemies; and they now reproached the Christ for associating with non but the vilest sinners.

"Why!  In sooth, one would think all the publicans in the country were like to gather around him!"

With a gesture, pointing to the attentive throngs, Jesus replied to the grumblers who were so blind as to make small account of that priceless array of souls:—

"What man is there among you," He said, "too, though he has one hundred sheep, if he loses one of them does not leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he find it?  And, after he finds it, he lays it over his shoulder with gladness, and coming to his home, calls together friends and neighbours, saying:—

"’Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’

"Even so, I tell you, there shall be more of joy in Heaven over one sinner who does penance, than over ninety-nine just men who need not penance.  Or again, what woman is there, who, if she has ten drachmas and she lose one of them, does not light the lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she find it?  And after she has found it she calls her friends and neighbours together, saying:—

"'Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I had lost.'

"So I tell you that there shall be joy in the sight of God's Angels over one sinner doing penance."

The prodigal son. J-J Tissot.

Evidently these first gracious similitudes scarcely touched the Pharisees, for Jesus proceeded to exalt further the divine Loving-kindness.  This He did in one of His most beautiful Parables,— reciting the sad misconduct of a spendthrift younger son, who had extorted from his father his own share of the inheritance.1 Never did the Lord picture the sinner's wanderings with vivider colours; every touch in the likeness stirs the soul, and brings back the features of our own life-story before our eyes.  For what man of us is there who has lived in this world without knowing, without seeing all round him, those very illusions which befall this prodigal boy,— that thirst for an unbridled and unhampered liberty which devoured him?  Who has not felt himself to be within a vain, strange land, where he is living an existence altogether without God?  First comes that passing intoxication of freedom, and then the awful languish which clutches his awakening soul, as he lies, sick at heart, with an infinite yearning void within him which his passions are powerless to satisfy, and with a bitter sense of his enthralment in the companionship of a filthy herd.  Happy is the man who amid this heart-heaviness lifts his eyes Heavenward, rises up, and returns unto his God!  Thrice happy is that soul, which, when overwhelmed with the realisation of its sins, remembers the forgiveness whereof Jesus held forth such marvellous tokens!

‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you...' J-J Tissot.

"While the ruined spendthrift is still a far off, his father sees him; he is filled with pitIfulness for his boy, makes haste toward him, falls upon his neck, and kisses him:—

"‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you.  I am not worthy to be called your son!’

"But the father says to his servants: ‘Bring forth quickly the richest robe and put it on him, and place a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.  And bring hither the fatted calf and kill it: let us eat and make good cheer!  For this son of mine was dead and is brought to life again; he was lost and is found.’"

The listening throngs were stirred and thrilled by this narrative, even as, since that day, so many repentant souls have recognized its comfortable power.  For a short space the Master left them to revolve His words silently in their hearts, but at length, looking upon the surly group of His enemies, stills standing along with the people, He added a word or two for them:—

" The elder son of the family was on his way home from the fields just as the merry-making began; his ears caught the loud quiring of musicians, the dancers' light laughter.

"’What might all this mean?’  He asked himself; and learning that his brother had returned he grew indignant and refused to enter the house.  Then the father came out to him, and began to intrigued him.  But he, making answer, said:—

"’See how many years I have served you and never neglected one of your commandments, yet never have you given me a kid to make merry with my friends.  Yet so soon as this other son returns, who has squandered his portion with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.

"And the father said: ‘My son, you are always with me, and everything that is mine is yours.  But it was fitting that we should make high festival and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life once more; he was lost and is found again.’"

So the thin veil which enveloped the Parable had become quite transparent.  This discontented son was the Jewish people, her Doctors especially, so boastful of the fact that they were the first-born of Jehovah, and destined to inherit everything which is His on earth,— the Temple, the Law, His Holy Word.  Did these sectaries, eaten up with their own self-importance, recognise the likeness in this portrait?  Did they at all comprehend that Jesus valued tears of penitence far above any hypocritical righteousness?  That he was bidding all sinful men repent, and thereby opened wide to them the celestial banquet and the Kingdom of God?  The Pharisees' sullen and obstinate blindness hardly admits of our hazarding any such conjecture; but though the Parable of the prodigal lad seemed only another stumbling-block to them, it has since saved numberless sinners from despair, for it assures them that the loving-kindness of their heavenly Father is unbounded, free, and knows no end.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam