Baby’s Presumption = Prodigal’s Wisdom

The prodigal son came to his senses. He remembered his true identity. He did not belong in a pig sty, starving. He did not belong homeless and alone. [Spanish]

He had a kind father and a safe home. He knew he had forfeited his “right” to make any claims on his father’s kindness; he knew he no longer “deserved” to live in his father’s house. He had squandered his inheritance. He figured he could only expect to live as a hired servant.

But he still knew he belonged under his father’s roof. He knew he had an identity that even all his self-centered mistakes could not efface: son of his father. He did not belong among strangers who didn’t care whether he lived or died. He belonged with his father who loved him.

Question: Did the prodigal son have pure motives when he decided to return home?

On the one hand, he intended to confess his wrongs honestly and humbly. He would accept the place of a servant. He knew he deserved no better.

On the other hand, contrition did not motivate him any more than hunger did. He mainly decided to go home because: he desperately needed food.

Does that fact make the prodigal son’s motives ‘impure?’ I don’t think so. To me, the purest thing about this parable is the prodigal son’s unquestioning confidence in the unbreakable bond that unites him to his father. He took that bond for granted. And that seems to me to be the fundamental point of the parable.

The prodigal knew he did not deserve his father’s kindness and consideration. But he assumed that he would get it anyway. The prodigal’s fundamental motive was: His unshakable faith in his father’s goodness, his father’s kindness, his father’s love and compassion for him. The father would not let his son starve. Period. The son presumed that. Because it was true.

May we have that kind of unshakable faith! That is the sublime wisdom that the Holy Spirit gives, as His greatest gift. To trust God so profoundly that our minds simply lean on Him, before we so much as start to think a thought.

The heavenly wisdom of the prodigal son: Not preoccupied at all with any question of “deserving” God’s gifts. After all, how can you ‘deserve’ to receive the gift of existence? The alternative to receiving existence as a gift from God, of course, is: not to exist. And literal nothing-burgers cannot ‘deserve’ anything. We exist by God’s pure graciousness.

The wise prodigal presumed on his father’s kindness, like the way newborn children presume on their parents’ kindness, before the little babies know any better.

The newborn babe crying out in hunger for the breast expects to be given the breast. Period. That’s the gift we want from on high: to know, in the deepest part of our minds, that God loves us that way. Not because we deserve it. We don’t deserve anything. But because we are His children.

The Prodigal Son

“La despedida del hijo pródigo” by Bartolome Murillo

The son asked for his inheritance, and the father let him go. Maybe the young man sought adventure. He wanted to see, to experience, to know about the world.

If going off for an adventure were a sin in and of itself, then the father would not have allowed it. But he gave his son the money. ‘You are a free man, my son. Go as you wish. The world is yours.’

This father, perhaps, knows something of the world himself. He knows that the world is dangerous. And hard to navigate all by yourself.  But also beautiful and full of enchanting mysteries.

How can we not like the adventuresome son? He starts out full of himself, to be sure. He’s insensitive to the feelings of his father and brother.  He is tragically unrealistic about himself. But he has courage. He has energy. This world has something to offer, if only we go looking for it!  Let’s have some fun!

Likable, yes. But what’s missing? Self-respect. The one thing he doesn’t see is that the most wonderful place in the wonderful world is his own home.

Let’s imagine the prodigal son in the first tavern he comes to, along the road. Someone there says to him, ‘Hey, you’re a barrel of laughs, buddy.  But aren’t you…aren’t you Lord Such-a-one’s son? The most noble, gracious, and beneficent man in this country—isn’t he your father? Don’t you and your brother stand to inherit the great estate?

‘Gosh, here you are carousing with us. But couldn’t you have champagne and music right there at home? I remember reading in the paper that you were supposed to marry Lady So-and-so—beautiful, virtuous, mysterious, and demure.

‘Isn’t that who you are, buddy?’

Murillo’s “La disipación del hijo pródigo”

So the son crept out of that tavern and proceeded to travel farther away, to find a place where no one would know his family.

Our rebellion: The heavenly Father built this house for us, full of light—this world. We get to share the house with people who really are not so altogether annoying–each other. This house has order and peace, because our heavenly Father governs it. He gives us what we need.

Above all, He gives us a certain hope: Everything that we want, the desire that grips us in a way we can’t even understand: We will have it. We will be satisfied.  The real adventure of this life starts with faith. We salute God’s sun every morning. We do our daily work, say our prayers, and love our neighbors—we do this, in this pilgrim life, and then all will be wonderfully well, forever, in the life to come.

We can see where the son got his prodigality. The father himself gives with prodigal generosity–lavishly, extravagantly.

But somewhere deep in the darkest basement of our souls, a sinister voice whispers: ‘You don’t deserve it.  It’s too good for you. You aren’t really a prince of this realm. Take a walk, and find your own kind. In the gutter.’

In the end, the adventuresome son’s money ran out. In the sty with the unclean beasts, he thought to himself: ‘What kind of adventure is this?’ The world runs its course, and its pleasures do not satisfy.

But the lovable young man still had one thing left: himself. He paused. He stopped. He found a moment of silence and truth. And he saw into the center of himself, where he finally found the true basis of his self-respect: a compass pointing to his father.

The compass had always been there; the son just hadn’t looked at it. He had ruined himself by seeking pleasures that were beneath him. But now he took notice of the inner compass, and he remembered that his home stood waiting for him. He could still find shelter under his father’s beautiful roof. And he finally understood that his own home really was the most wonderful place in the world.

Here’s a question. Where is the image of Christ in the Parable of the Prodigal Son?  Aren’t the parables supposed to include an image of Christ?  After all, we see Christ clearly enough in the Parable of the Lost Sheep, which can also be found in the 15^th chapter of the gospel of Luke.  In the parable of the Lost Sheep, Christ is the shepherd.

But where is Christ in the Parable of the Prodigal Son?

Christ crucified actually lights up the parable of the Prodigal Son so that we can see what’s there. We see the lordly father, so prodigally generous that he won’t even listen to his son’s entire confession of sin. Instead, he just starts the music and pours champagne, because he has his son back home again.

How do we know that this unfathomably gracious and loving father is our Father? How is the face of the infinitely merciful heavenly Father revealed? One way: Christ crucified. Christ crucified is the light that shows us that the prodigal son’s father is our Father.

Servility and the Prodigal Son

Let’s see who really knows their Bible. The two little parables that we read from Luke 15 at today’s Holy Mass: they serve as a kind of introduction to a larger, super-famous parable…

Right! The Prodigal Son.

So, let’s consider the question: Must we submit to God? Like servants or slaves? Parable of the Prodigal Son answers the question, by showing us how the mercy of God works.

When the prodigal son decides to return to his father’s house, does the young man have ‘pure’ motives?

Hardly. He intends to return as a servant, because he knows that the servants in his father’s house have it better than he has it, at the pig farm. He returns to his father’s house out of self-interest. He’s hungry. He knows his father’s servants don’t go hungry.

But not petulant or proud self-interest. Practical and realistic self-interest. He prepares himself to make a humble and genuine apology to his father for the wrongs he has done him.

It’s not like the prodigal son didn’t love his father. Even in the throes of his sinful passions, he loved him all along. He always took the goodness and kindness of his father for granted, as a given. He always loved the humane man. Life at the pig farm provided him with a contrast to gracious way his father ran his own household.

So the son always loved. But even as he approached his father’s house, the son still did not fully understand his father’s enormous generosity and kindness. He loved it and admired it, but didn’t understand it.

So the father truly took the son by surprise. When the old man would not even pause to hear the son’s full apology. And when the father would not remotely countenance the idea of the son entering the house as a servant. My son, a servant in my own home? No way, Jose. My son wears a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and a beautiful robe. Slaughter the fatted calf!

God knows nothing of slavish submission. He knows only pure freedom.

But for us to get there—for us to learn what pure freedom even is—we must humbly submit first. We must follow God’s law out of pure obedience.

And out of self-interest. Because a life of blind obedience to God beats the alternative.

More on the Essential Fact

At daily Mass on Saturday, the day before the third Sunday of Lent, we will read the Parable of the Prodigal Son. After that: only three weeks till Palm Sunday!

Let’s focus on this: Christ came to conquer death. To die as a man and rise again as a man. CNN can come and go; brackets can get filled out and busted. But this is the essential fact. Jesus said, “In My Father’s house, there are many dwelling places.” We live a mortal life in a sinful world, to be sure. But, fundamentally, we live in the Father’s house. And each of us has his or her own place in that house, no matter what—because of Christ’s conquest of death.

We read in the gospel at today’s Mass that Lazarus would gladly have eaten the scraps that fell from Dives’ table. Lazarus did not demand a widescreen hd smart tv. Lazarus did not style himself as some kind of high-rolling tycoon. He simply wanted his just portion of food.

But he did not get it. Because Dives did style himself a high-rolling tycoon and did demand a widescreen hd smart tv and did not concern himself with his fellowman.

Then death came for them both. And with death came justice.

Tomorrow at Holy Mass we will read a parable about how the Father built a fruitful vineyard with plenty of dwelling places, for his grapes to grow and for His children to reap the fruits. He sent His Son to collect His just portion. ( I guess the just portion of the Creator can only be our peaceful, worshipful love, right?) But they killed the Son and heir.

See the picture here? The Father wills peace, harmony, human co-operation. The Father wills the fruitfulness of His children. The Father reigns over a kingdom not of scarcity, nor of selfish luxury—but of tranquil, beautiful sufficiency for everyone. The Son fulfills the will of the Father perfectly. And, in this fallen world, it leads to His death.

When rich Dives cried out from hell, begging Abraham to send someone back from the dead to teach the world a lesson, Abraham demurred. ‘God already tried to teach the world a lesson! Didn’t He form a covenant and seal it with His life-giving love? How hard is it to obey the Ten Commandments? No more warnings.’

But, as we will read Saturday: Even without the warning that Dives begged Abraham to send, something managed to get through to the prodigal son. Something penetrated his soul, as he gazed upon the pig-slop that he wished he could feed himself upon. He languished in the muck, in this fallen world. But, somehow, he found a way to stand on the stone which the builders rejected. The stone which the builders rejected is Christ, the Prince of Peace, Who came seated on a donkey into Jerusalem, prepared to reign with love. But they rejected Him and killed Him.

The prodigal son managed to stand on that stone somehow, and he thought to himself, “In my father’s house, there are many dwelling places! There’s one for me.” And the father said, “This son of mine was dead, but now he lives!”

Christ conquered death. He conquered death with something. It’s the same mysterious something that somehow moved the heart of the prodigal son towards the truth of God.

Christ conquered death with the very life that the Father freely wills to give us. Christ conquered death with the Father’s gift of life. Abraham would not send a warning back from beyond the grave. But Christ did not hesitate to return from the grave with a gift. The gift of the fruitful life of the eternal springtime of God.

The Prodigal Father

The son asked for his inheritance, and the Father let him go.  Maybe the young man sought adventure.  He wanted to see, to experience, to know about the world.

If going off for an adventure were a sin in and of itself, then the father would never have allowed it. But he gave his son the money.  ‘You are a free man, my son.  Go as you wish.  The world is yours.’

This father, we see, knows something of the world himself.  He knows that the world is dangerous.  And hard to navigate all by yourself.  But also beautiful and full of enchanting mysteries.

How can we not like the adventuresome son?  He starts out full of himself, to be sure.  He’s insensitive to the feelings of his father and brother.  He is tragically unrealistic about himself.  But he has courage.  He has energy.  This world has something to offer, if only we go looking for it!  Let’s have some fun!

Likable, yes.  But what’s missing?  Self-respect.  The one thing he doesn’t see is that the most wonderful place in the wonderful world is his own home.

Let’s imagine the prodigal son in the first tavern along the road.  Someone there says to him, ‘Hey, you’re a barrel of laughs, buddy.  But aren’t you…aren’t you Lord Such-a-one’s son?  The most noble, gracious, and beneficent man in this country—isn’t he your father?  Don’t you and your brother stand to inherit the great estate?

‘Gosh, here you are carousing with us.  But couldn’t you have champagne and music and everything you want—within reasonable limits of decency and religion—couldn’t you have it all right there at home?  Gosh, I remember reading in the paper that you were supposed to marry Lady So-and-so—beautiful, virtuous, mysterious, and demure.

‘Isn’t that who you are, buddy?’

So then the son crept out of that tavern and proceeded to travel farther away, to find a place where no one would know him.

Our rebellion:  The heavenly Father erects a home for us to live in, with faith for its beautiful floorboards.  He builds this house for us, full of light.  We get to share the house with people who really are not so altogether annoying–each other.  This house has order and peace, because our heavenly Father governs it.  He gives us what we need.

Above all, He gives us a certain hope:  Everything that you want, the desire that grips you in a way you can’t even understand:  You will have it.  You will be satisfied.  Do not doubt it.  Your real adventure involves saluting the sun in my sky every morning, doing your daily work, saying your prayers, and loving your neighbor—and then all will be wonderfully well, forever.

We can see where the son got his prodigality.  The father himself gives with prodigal generosity–lavishly, extravagantly.

But somewhere deep in the darkest basement of our souls, a sinister voice whispers:  ‘You don’t deserve it.  It’s too good for you.  You aren’t really a prince of this realm.  Take a walk, and find your own kind.  In the gutter.’

In the end, the adventurer’s money ran out.  In the sty with the unclean beasts, he thought to himself:  ‘What kind of adventure is this?’  The world runs its course, and its pleasures do not satisfy.

But the lovable young man still had one thing left:  himself.  He paused.  He stopped.  He found a moment of silence and truth.  And he saw into the center of himself, where he finally found the true basis of his self-respect:  a compass pointing to his father.

The compass had always been there; the son just hadn’t looked at it.  He had ruined himself by seeking pleasures that were beneath him.  But now he took notice of the inner compass, and he remembered that his home stood waiting for him.  He could still find shelter under his father’s beautiful roof.  And he finally understood that his own home really was the most wonderful place in the world.

Here’s a question.  Where is the image of Christ in the Parable of the Prodigal Son?  Aren’t the parables supposed to include an image of Christ?  After all, we see Christ clearly enough in the Parable of the Lost Sheep, which can also be found in the 15^th chapter of the gospel of Luke.  In the parable of the Lost Sheep, Christ is the shepherd.  But where is Christ in the Parable of the Prodigal Son?

Christ crucified actually lights up the parable of the Prodigal Son so that we can see what’s there.  We see the lordly, generous father, so prodigally generous that he won’t even listen to his son’s entire confession of sin.  Instead, he just starts the music and pours champagne, because he has his son back home again.

How do we know that this unfathomably gracious and loving father is our Father?  How is the face of the infinitely merciful heavenly Father revealed?  One way:  Christ crucified.  Christ crucified is the light that shows us that the prodigal son’s father is our Father.

The Home We Belong In

What does ‘prodigal’ mean? Right. Recklessly wasteful. Lavish, extravagant—but in a destructive way.

The son asked for his inheritance, and the Father let him go. The young man sought adventure. He wanted to see, to experience, to know about the world beyond his home.

The older brother had no such sense of adventure. For this reason, we like him less. His younger brother might have squandered his inheritance in a thoroughly undignified manner. But at least the prodigal son never whined, never pouted like a baby. The older son seems not to have appreciated just how wonderful his father’s house really was.

The father anchors the whole parable, an infallibly wise and loving presence. If going off for an adventure, like Bilbo Baggins—if that were a sin in and of itself, then the father would never have allowed the younger son to go.

But he did let his son go. He gave his son the money. You are a free man, my son. Go as you wish. The world is yours.

This father, we see, knows the world. He knows that the world is, indeed, a place of adventure. Dangerous, yes. Hard to navigate all by yourself, yes. But fundamentally evil? No.

Springtime 2013

Rejoice, Jerusalem. Rejoice because the Lord lives, and He loves His children. We rejoice even in the hardest times, even in the most uncertain moments, because God has made one thing absolutely clear: He wills to deliver us from evil. He wills to bring us home to Him.

Did the prodigal son have pure, spiritual motives when he decided to return to his father’s house? Doesn’t seem like he did. He wanted to eat the pig-slop, but no one gave him any. Hunger, not noble contrition, drove him back home.

Doesn’t mean that he did not love his father. He simply had not yet learned everything that love involves. He came back home looking for food, and he found food and love. He came looking for a tiny exception to the rigor that justice required, since by right he had no claim whatsoever. He found boundless mercy and a completely fresh start.

We find ourselves, dear brothers and sisters, living at a time when the relationship between the Church and the world will be refreshed. A new start will be made. I don’t think we go too far if we say that this springtime of 2013 opens before us as pregnant with possibilities as the springtime of 1963, the first spring of the Second Vatican Council. That spring saw a papal transition, too. Blessed Pope John XXIII finally succumbed to his illness, and Paul VI became the new pope.

Samaritan Well

Perhaps you will find this brief essay for Saturday of the Second Week of Lent interesting, or even edifying–even though it was written by the most annoying person in the world…

Jacob's Well

…A little groggy today, since it took the mighty Rams until nearly 1:00 a.m. to send the ‘Noles home to Florida. Robby Robinson took a page from Rich Chvotkin and yelled, “He blocked the shot! He blocked the shot! He blocked the shot!” about seven times, and then “Rams win! Rams win! Rams win!” about twenty times. It was awesome.

…Here’s a homily for the Third Sunday of Lent:

Last week we talked about what salvation is. If you missed last week, I’m sorry. We talked about our father Abraham, Dairy Queen ice-cream treats, Mount Tabor in the Holy Land, and Sophia Loren movies.

Anyway, we do not know yet what heaven is like, but we know that it involves being personally united with God forever.

If we hope to have communion with God in the end, then we probably need to have some kind of communion with Him now, right? Some kind of practice or spring training for the Big Show, so to speak.

Here is an easy question: How do we develop a friendship with the Lord now while we are still here on earth? Easy… You got it: By praying.

Has anyone ever heard of the Catechism of the Catholic Church? Everybody know that the Catechism is divided into four parts, for the four pillars of the Catholic faith?

Part IV of the Catechism concerns prayer. This part of the Catechism begins with the gospel reading about the Samaritan woman at the well.

To pray is like going to a well. Someone who prays opens up his soul to God like a thirsty throat opening up for cool, refreshing water.

When we open up like this, when we go to the well of prayer, we find Christ waiting for us there, like the Samaritan woman did. Upon meeting Him, we discover three amazing things, like the Samaritan woman discovered.

Parable Comparison

A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, ‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’ So the father divided the property between them…(Luke 15:11 and following)

Did you know that there is also a Buddhist parable of the Prodigal Son?

Let’s compare the parable of Buddha with our beloved parable of Christ.

In the Buddhist parable, there is only one son. The son departs from the father’s house, but he does not take any money with him when he goes.

In the Lord Jesus’ parable, the wealthy father gives his younger son his inheritance, even though the son has no right to it until the father’s demise.

Mystery of the Lost Coin

Chapter fifteen of St. Luke’s gospel is famous for containing: the parable of the Lost Sheep and the parable of the Prodigal Son.

In between these two beautiful parables, there is a strange one, the parable of the Lost Coin:

Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it?

And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’

In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

Please do not get me wrong: I mean no disrespect to our Lord. But I have always found this parable strange.

Sure, losing one-tenth of your savings is something that would lead you to go searching, lamp in hand. But there seems to be more to this than the monetary value of the coin…

There is:

According to the old customs of Palestine, brides do not wear wedding rings. They wear veils embroidered with coins, or necklaces made of coins. The coins symbolize the dowry they brought to the marriage. The coins ARE the wedding ring, the symbol of the marriage bond.

The woman in the parable, searching the house frantically with lighted lamp, is searching for her lost wedding ring.

(Hat tip to H.V. Morton.)