The Prodigal Son

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

We are told in the Gospel of St. Luke that “a certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that falls to me.’ And he divided his means between them” (Luke 15:11-32).

The story, like many stories in the Gospel, is anonymous. These two sons are going to represent not necessarily two specific people, but they could also be character traits of each one of us; some when we're younger, some when we're older.

“And the younger of them said, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that falls to me.’” He's respectful when he speaks to his father, but he wants what is rightly his.

‘I want to go and do my thing.’ ‘I want to get out of here.’ ‘I want to be free.’

He thinks that freedom is to do whatever he wants. Of course, he's going to find that that understanding of freedom leads to a bad end. Freedom is not freedom to do what we want or what we feel like.

Freedom, authentic freedom, is to do what is right, to do what is good, to choose things that will ultimately lead us to our eternal destiny, which is the eternal wedding feast.

He thought freedom was to be out from under the yoke of obedience, to get away from his father's house, to hang free. He didn't appreciate all the good things that were there in his father's house.

It's going to take him a long time and a lot of experience before he comes to realize the great things, the blessings, the richness that were there in the domestic Church from which he came.

When his father was asked, the good father—we're going to see in the course of time how the father in this parable represents our heavenly Father, a loving Father, a model of a Father who's always watching out for us—when this son asked for his share of the inheritance, the father doesn't place any obstacles.

He doesn't say, ‘You're too young or you're too immature or you're too inexperienced’ or ‘I'm not going to give you this.’

It was the share of his property that fell to the son. In justice, he felt he had to give it. But also, the father is silent.

Like older parents, perhaps they've given all the lectures, the children have heard all the wisdom that has been poured forth on them, and now they have to learn for themselves.

There's a message from this father that parents with teenage children have to loosen the grip a little bit. If you invest in the freedom of your teenage child, you will get a responsible adult. Invest in the freedom but also demanding accountability, responsibility—one of the ways they grow in maturity.

This father, with all of his wisdom, is silent. Maybe he knows the son has to learn the lessons the hard way, but he wants his son to learn the lessons.

He doesn't protect his son from learning the lessons because he knows that's good for him—to learn the ways of the world, to learn to appreciate the values that he has learned in his own domestic Church, the hearth where he was nurtured, the formation he has received, the good things that he has.

He's a bit like a spoiled child who's taken everything for granted; doesn't realize the value of things.

We're told, “He divided his means between them.” The father said yes to the son.

Possibly, all through the younger years, he'd been saying no. No, which is also a loving word. But now it's time to say yes. Time for the son to learn with deeds.

“And not many days later the younger son gathered up all his wealth and took his journey into a far country.” The son couldn't wait to get away.

“Not many days later he gathered up all his wealth...” He didn't leave anything. There's no foresight, there's no plan B, there's no security net in case things don't work out so that he can come back to it.

We see the adventurous spirit of youth that perhaps lacks a bit of prudence, of foresight, of maturity—all the things precisely the father wants him to learn so that he can be a great adult, so he can be a great parent, a great father.

There's an educationist in the States called James Stenson who says that parents have to try and live like great human beings so their children see what it means to be a great human being, so that they can grow up to be a great person, a great father, a mother, to build a great family.

You get the impression that the father in this family was trying to be that great human being.

The son took his journey into a far country. He got away as far as possible from the strictness and the rules and regulations and the lifestyle of the home, and he let it all hang free.

We're told, “He squandered his fortune in loose living.” Squandered is a descriptive word. Again, there's no foresight; there's great immaturity. In some ways there's great waste.

But notice how the father lets him make all these mistakes. Very important. He doesn't warn him, he doesn't send a detective to keep an eye on him. He wants his freedom? Now he has his freedom.

The moment has come when the father has given him as much formation as he can and now he has to learn for himself and stand on his own two feet and be an adult. Of course, the son fails all these tests. “He squandered his fortune.” It was a lot of money and he squanders it in loose living.

There may come a moment when every child has to be given his head to waste a bit of time, a bit of energy, a bit of money, in all sorts of ways. And the parent has to let him go.

“And after he had spent all, there came a grievous famine over that country.” I heard an elderly priest saying once that in every country things change an awful lot in ten years.

He was speaking to a group of priests in a country where the family looked like a very solid institution. But true enough, in ten years many things had changed.

Likewise, in this story different winds blow every ten years. In forming children, we don't form them just for the present age. We form them for the future winds that may blow, the changes that may come, which can include hurricanes, and we try to instill deep values, the things that matter with our words, with our actions, with our prayer.

The story of this young fellow is like the story of the life of every person. Over a ten-year period, things change dramatically. Different winds blow. Times of plenty become times of less.

We always have to be thinking of the future, planning for the future, and ultimately planning for the eternal wedding feast. What is this life all about?

Where have I come from? Where am I going? What is my life all about? What is this life all about?

We find the answers to those questions in Christ, in Scripture.

This young fellow is still looking for those answers, still yearning for the deep questions that every human and every young person yearns for. He hadn't come to realize that things change. Life is fleeting. This world is undergoing a radical transformation all the time.

He needs to get his life founded on solid rock. “And he himself began to suffer want.”

You get an inkling here that this kid had never suffered want in his life. If ever your children want for things, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

There may be very good things in your times, in your family, if sometimes you don't have what you'd like to have. You don't have everything that other people have. You can't afford the things that other people can afford.

That may be a great grace. It can help your children to appreciate the good things, to realize we can't have everything in this world—but I have to be satisfied with what I have.

Being content is a great gift. How many people do you know in your life who are content?

There's a point in The Way where St. Josemaría says, “Be content with what enables you to lead a simple and sober life” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 631).

This fellow didn't know how to lead a simple and sober life. Quite the opposite. He was leading a life of excess, of indulgence. He didn't know what life was all about. Now he begins to suffer want.

You could think, with the wisdom of the father, that that is precisely what I want my son to experience: to suffer want, and maybe to open his eyes and realize there are so many people in the world who suffer want, and who learn how to be happy with what they have.

It's like the father wanting him to learn that happiness in this world does not come from material things. The world may be speaking to us about having, getting, spending, whereas happiness comes from giving, serving, helping.

What can I contribute? It's like a clarion call to young people to do something decent with their life—not to get drowned in excessive material prosperity.

“And he went and joined one of the citizens of that country who sent him to his farm to feed swine.”

He really experienced want. He had to get a job, he had to find money, he had to start again. What a wonderful lesson he's learning: how to start again.

He's learning about interior toughness, fortitude—a great lesson for young children to learn because one day they may need to call on all that fortitude.

He went and looked for a job. The person who gave him a job gave him the lowest of the lowest jobs he could possibly get: to feed the pigs.

In many cultures in the world, that's in some way the lowest of the low. He really had a huge social tumble. He's learning from the bottom up.

We’re told “he longed to fill himself with the pods that the swine were eating.”

Not only was he feeding the pigs, but he was hungry feeding the pigs. He came to see that the pigs had more food than he did. He longed to eat what they were eating. It's really the epitome of a destitution.

Our Lord may be giving us an insight into what mortal sin is. When we fall from the state of grace—the privileged calling of being children of God, a daughter of God, a son of God—when we fall into mortal sin, it's like we fall into the state of this young fellow who gets down to the level of longing to eat what the pigs were eating.

But no one offered to give them to him. He couldn't even have that. He was stuck in his hunger. No one even offered to give him what the pigs were eating. It's the lowest of the low.

When I was 15, I was sent by loving parents to an uncle in Yorkshire in England who had a pig farm. I was sent to feed the pigs.

This pig farm had a sort of an antechamber where you prepared the feed for the pigs. There was a sort of a mixed feed that came down in a chute.

You filled different buckets with different levels of pig feed depending on the level of development of the pig. You put all this in a big trolley.

When they were all ready, you opened the inner door of the piggery. I learned very quickly that before opening that inner door, it was very important to take a big long deep breath and hold it, then get that trolley and go as fast as you could down that center aisle pouring out the pig feed into the different troughs.

About halfway down, there was a fan in the roof from which a little bit of fresh air came. It wasn't totally clean air. It had now passed already to the lungs of 200 pigs. But at least you could breathe a little bit there.

I didn't last too long in that occupation. But I never longed to eat what the pigs were eating. So this guy really fell really low.

Then we're told, “But when he came to himself...” This is like a biblical expression for doing an examination of conscience.

He examined his life. He examined where he was. He examined his hunger. He examined point by point each of the realities of the life that he was now leading. ‘Where am I? This is where I'm at.’ “He comes to himself.”

A penny drops. The cock crows. He said, “How many hired men in my father's house have bread in abundance, while I am perishing here with hunger.”

Now the transformation begins to come. It's a story that's all about conversion. This is the beginning of conversion.

He's beginning to realize his status, his position, where he has fallen to. He's beginning to make comparisons, and he's beginning to realize what there was in his father's house: how blessed the people were; what a good place it was; that in fact, there were many good things there.

He's beginning to realize that possibly, when he left his father's house, he made the biggest mistake of his whole life. His father has let him make that mistake.

Sometimes you have to let other people make mistakes.

When I was about six, I was brought for my first train ride. My father told me not to go near the edge of the platform.

But I went near the edge of the platform and I fell off the platform onto the railway track. There was a big tunnel at the end of the platform from which a train could appear at any particular moment.

I remember screaming to get myself up off that railway track. And I still remember my father's finger shaking and saying to me, ‘I told you, I told you.’

Sometimes we have to make big mistakes and learn from those big mistakes, and let our children make big mistakes. Since then, I have never fallen off the platform onto a railway track.

This father in the parable lets his son make all these mistakes, because he's letting him make that realization: to discover the treasures that he had; to see how rich he was.

We have to try and make an appreciation of the fact that we are spiritual tycoons. When we're in the state of grace, we're spiritual millionaires—the richest state to be. It's the way to live.

More importantly than ever, it's the way to die. If we are to have one great desire in our life, it should be to die in the state of grace, and to do everything—everything—in the course of our life to make that a reality, and to teach that great message and lesson to everyone around us.

It's as though the father of the parable, the heavenly Father, is again teaching this wayward son this very important lesson. And he's beginning to get the message.

He makes this examination of conscience. “I will get up and go to my father.” I will change my life. I will make that journey.

There may be times in our life when we need to seek a priest to go to Confession. We might have to make a bit of a journey. It could be hours. It could be a long time. Just getting there might take a long time. Just getting there might take a lot of effort, a lot of time, a lot of money.

But there might be no greater penance that we do in our life than that: the effort to get to the sacraments, “to live in the house of our Father all the days of our life” (Ps. 27:4).

“I will get up and go to my father and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.’”

Notice how all through the parable, he speaks to his father with great respect. “Father…" Even now, he's mature, he's responsible, he's changed. But he hasn't lost the respect for his father.

Then he said, “I have sinned.” He's learned personal responsibility. He doesn't say, ‘It's your fault, I was raised on grade B milk. You didn't give me all the things you should have given me.’

He doesn't blame it on his upbringing, or the school he went to, or what's in the newspaper, or the atmosphere that was created around him, or the food that he was given to eat, or a whole pile of other things. Excuses, escapism.

“I have sinned.” When we go to the sacrament of Confession, we say the same thing. “Bless me, father, for I have sinned.”

“I've sinned against heaven and before you.”

He hasn't just sinned, but he's also realized the gravity of his sin.

Lord, may you give us the grace to realize the gravity of our sin. When Holy Week comes, all the more. When we see the extent of Christ's sufferings on the Way of the Cross, it helps us to understand a little more of the gravity of sin.

“I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

“I am no longer worthy.” He's learned humility. ‘I don't have a right to anything.’ ‘I've lost all my rights.’ He doesn't come to his father and say:

‘Well, look, let's have a negotiation. Let's come to some agreement. Let's see what's on the table. You know, can we come to some arrangement? I get my room back. I get my some of my privileges back. No, no, I've lost everything. I realize I don't deserve anything. I am nothing. I'm a filthy rag. I've disgraced your name. I've disgraced the family. I've disgraced myself. I've behaved like a barbarian. I've been a terrible human being. I've been a disgrace to the human race.’

“I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men.”

Make me, treat me. ‘I don't even deserve to be treated as your son. I've lost everything. If I could just get back to the status of one of your hired men, then that would be wonderful. It would be more than I deserve.’

It's a rather beautiful admission of his fault, of his mistakes, and also a rather beautiful statement of what he's learned—the value of virtue. “And he arose and he went to his father.”

He didn't just dream of these things as a nice thing to do: ‘If only I could go to my father.’

He didn't just think about it, or theorize about it, or come up with practical excuses that it's too far away or it's too much of a humiliation. Or it's too difficult. Or what will the hired men think if they see me working with them?

All these things were not relevant. The only relevant thing was to get back into his father's house.

In our apostolate of Confession, we have to try and help everyone around us to put aside all other personal considerations to make their peace with God, to get their invitation to the eternal wedding feast. Nothing else is important.

“But while he was yet a long way off, his father saw him.”

Now we come to the most beautiful part of the parable, which is all tied up in the father—Our heavenly loving Father, who never loses sight of any of His children. “While he was yet a long way off...”

I heard recently of a tribe here in Kenya called the Maasai, who have very special eyesight. They can see miles away some little individual on a mountain, and they can pick out who they are.

It's as though this father might have been belonging to that tribe. He had incredible eyesight, so that he could see a long way off. And he wasn't a young man, but still his sight was incredible.

You get the impression that he must have been looking out every single day. This loving heavenly father never lost hope that his son would come back.

If you have a child that's gone a bit wayward, be like this loving father. Keep your eye out, pray, hope, be silent. And maybe it will happen.

Every day he was looking out on the horizon—‘maybe my son will come today’—because that father had love in his heart.

He never hated his son. He never disenfranchised him completely. He may have given him all his money that was due to him, but there was still a piece of his heart that that son had a right to in his father.

That loving heart led him to look out every day. “His father saw him and was moved with compassion.”

The father doesn't say, ‘Get me my gun or my whip. I'm going to finish this fellow off. He has dragged the family name in the mud. He's made a fool of himself. He's disgraced himself and his family. He's done the worst possible things he could do. He's lived in the gutter.’

No, “the father was moved with compassion.” Mercy. Mercy always, and forgiveness for everyone.

We shall be forgiven and have mercy in the same measure as we impart mercy to other people.

“And he ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him.”

He ran. He didn't just go there slowly or amble along. This was something wonderful.

His son had come back. Nothing in the world could compare with this joy. It was worth everything. ‘My son has learned the lessons.’ He's become mature. He's become responsible. He's become an adult. He's learned humility.

Now he's earned his place in the family. ‘He's a son after my own kind. Now he's ready to be a father of a family.’

“And his son said to him, ‘Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.’”

The son doesn't chicken out from this admission of total guilt and responsibility. When we go to Confession, we do something similar.

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Fetch quickly the best robe and put it on him and give him a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And bring out the fattened calf and kill it and let us eat and make merry. Because this my son was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and is found.’”

“And they began to make merry.” “Fetch quickly the best robe.” After the initial embrace, the joy, the welcome, now come all the privileges. The reinstatement. He's to get “the best robe.” Not just any robe.

He's being reinstated as a member of the family. He's recovering his dignity. The father is going to give him something over and above and beyond what he could possibly have imagined—and what he didn't deserve.

It’s a beautiful image of Our heavenly Father for the efforts of humility that we make.

“And put it on him.” Don't just bring it, but put it on him.

“And give him a ring for his finger.” Symbol of dignity. Symbol of commitment.

“And sandals for his feet.” The servants didn't have sandals—another sign that he is now fully a true son that has come back.

"Now we're going to celebrate. Bring out the fattened calf and kill it. Let us eat and make merry.”

He may have lost all the money. He may have done terrible things. But the most important thing has happened: he has come back into the fold. It's a spiritual renewal. A spiritual regeneration.

After every confession–for us it can be like Easter. A new joy, a new hope. A new beginning. A reinstatement in the state of grace.

We have the dignity of the children of God. There's nothing as important as that, because everything in this world is passing. It's fleeting. It's worth nothing. It's going to disappear. The things that last are the spiritual.

Somehow this son has learned this great lesson. “And they began to make merry.” Maybe think in your family of trying to celebrate spiritual realities. Feast days. Make Easter and Christmas and Easter and Pentecost big days. Follow the liturgy. Make merry in your family.

The family should be a place of joy. The family should be a place of fun. Not all the time. But on certain occasions we should throw the house out the window. Help people to see that our family is a place where we have a good time.

We enjoy ourselves. Christ enjoyed himself in Bethany. He enjoyed himself in that domestic Church with his best friends. They had a good time. It was the epitome of hospitality, and care, and affection, and of love.

That's what this father is creating, that atmosphere of merriment, because now we really and truly have something worth celebrating. ‘My son was lost and has come to life again. He was lost and is found.’

We could ask Our Lady, the Mediatrix of all graces, that she might facilitate that being found in the life of each one of us. that happens with a good Confession that we can rediscover the greatness of Our heavenly loving Father.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

GD