Homily on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son #
Dear brothers and sisters!
The days of Great Lent—the Forty Days—are approaching, a time when every Christian must strive to offer repentance to God.
We are all sinners, and our path to salvation lies through repentance, which will return us to our Father’s house—the Kingdom of Heaven. In recognizing ourselves as sinners, we must not blame others for our falls into sin, nor justify ourselves by saying, “everyone does it.” A sinner does not become less guilty before God simply because his sin is common to many. Indeed, widespread sins may even provoke God’s wrath more strongly, as was the case in the days of Noah, when the Lord destroyed all who committed iniquity.
We must grieve over our sins and shed bitter tears of repentance. Abba Pimen taught: “He who wishes to cleanse himself from sins, let him wash them away with tears. He who does not weep for himself here will weep forever there. Therefore, it is necessary to weep—either here, willingly, or there, from torment.”
Today, for the first time this year, we heard at Matins the sorrowful song of the captive Israelites, By the rivers of Babylon, in which they remember their lost homeland and weep for it. Likewise, while we live on this earth, we are deprived of our true homeland—the Kingdom of Heaven. We are in a heavy captivity of sin, and we can only free ourselves from this bondage and return to our homeland by lamenting our sins with the most bitter and sincere tears. Let us remember that this earth is a foreign land to us, a place of temporary sojourning, where we suffer under the captivity of sin and the works of the enemy. For us, captives, suffering is inevitable. But there is another world where the righteous will live forever, where there will be no tribulations, no sorrows, no sighing. And if we illuminate our lives with the bright thought of the Heavenly Jerusalem, then life will become less burdensome and sorrowful for us.
The Lord, in His parables, reveals to us the hidden mysteries of spiritual life and the ways of attaining the Kingdom of Heaven. Today, we heard the Parable of the Prodigal Son. In the Holy Gospel, this parable is preceded by the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin (Luke 15). The Pharisees and scribes condemned the Lord for receiving sinners and eating with them (Luke 15:2). In response, the Lord told them these parables, showing how great the joy in heaven is when a sinner, who seemed lost and perished for the Kingdom of God, repents. In these parables, the Lord speaks of a natural property of the human heart—the ability to rejoice more over something that was lost and found again than over something that was never lost, even if the latter was far more valuable.
Let us briefly recall the content of today’s Parable of the Prodigal Son.
A father had two sons. The younger son demanded from his father the portion of the inheritance due to him. Having left for a distant land, he squandered his wealth, living wantonly and dissolutely. When he became destitute, he hired himself out to a local man to tend swine and longed to fill his stomach with their food. Then he came to his senses and thought: “How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, and here I am perishing with hunger! I will arise and go to my father and say: ‘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.’”
The younger son set out for his father’s house. His father, seeing him from afar—because he had always been waiting for him—was moved with compassion, ran to meet him, embraced him, and without letting him finish his words of repentance, commanded his servants: “Bring the best robe and put it on him, place a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, kill the fatted calf, and let us rejoice and feast.”
During the feast, the elder son returned from the field and, hearing joyful voices in the house and learning the reason for the celebration, refused to enter. The father went out to entreat him, but he reproached his father, saying that despite serving him faithfully for many years, he had never been given such a feast, whereas the younger son, who had wasted his inheritance on a sinful life, was now being honored. The father replied: “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. But it was meet to make merry and be glad, for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found.”
Today’s Gospel speaks not only of sin and repentance but also of the mercy of forgiveness that God grants us. A certain man had two sons, says the Lord. According to the interpretation of the Holy Fathers, this certain man signifies the Lord Himself. This is no surprise, for He created the visible and invisible worlds for our sake, implanted in us a moral sense—our conscience—to guide us to righteousness. As a loving Father, God gave His Son over to death for our salvation. His love for us is greater than that of earthly fathers for their children, for He offered Himself as a sacrifice to restore us to eternal life through divine Baptism and the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Thus, the Gospel tells us: A certain man had two sons. These two sons represent two types of people, differing in character and inclinations toward either sin or righteousness. The younger son in the parable represents a reckless person who does not live according to God’s will but follows his own desires. And the younger son said to his father, “Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.” He is called the younger not only in age but in mind, for he is immature, thoughtless, and foolish in his demand. He did not humbly ask for his inheritance but spoke as though he were making a rightful claim, treating his father as if he owed him something. But what justice is there in this? How can a father be a debtor to his son? On the contrary, children are debtors to their parents, for they have received life from them. The younger son’s request reveals his disrespect toward his father.
God grants a great gift to His children—the gift of free will, the freedom to choose either the broad way or the narrow. As the Creator, He has no need of our offerings, for He lacks nothing; thus, in His mercy, He divides His wealth, allowing each person to use what is given according to his own will.
Not many days after, the younger son gathered all and journeyed into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
Our substance consists, above all, of our soul, our mind, and our body. As long as we remain with God, our mind is focused on Him, but when we depart from Him—that is, when we open the doors to passions, pleasures, and lusts—our soul and mind become less discerning. They cease to perceive the spiritual world, become deaf and blind to the Lord and to the voice of conscience, and lose the ability to distinguish between good and evil. He that is not with Me is against Me, and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth (Luke 11:23), says the Lord. Indeed, without the Lord, our mind, as if loosed from restraint, plunges into folly, resembling the mind of senseless beasts, squandering what is truly our wealth—our spiritual and physical strength, given to us by God.
A reckless person grows impoverished and falls into wretchedness, yet in his memory remains the recollection of that blessed life which was in his father’s house. For the soul is by nature Christian, meaning that no matter how far we stray from God, our soul retains some awareness of the blessedness of life with Him. In departing from Him, it feels its own destitution, loneliness, and rejection and suffers greatly from it.
Having left his father’s house and squandered all he had, the parable says that the younger son began to be in want, and he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. When a person departs from God into the world of passions, where God is absent, he cleaves to the devil. Our passions are like filth or like animals that delight in filth. One such animal is the pig, which loves mud and uncleanness, always keeping its eyes downward toward the trough. Swinishness can become a condition of the soul when a person harbors vile and impure thoughts, is coarse, selfish, intemperate, gluttonous, and indulges the body, thereby multiplying his passions. And worse still, whereas a pig eventually leaves the trough when full, a person consumed by passion never finds satisfaction, for sin can never truly satiate. Such a soul is doomed to destruction: Those who are far from Thee shall perish (Psalm 72:27). Whoever distances himself from God is forced to serve the devil, and such self-degradation is the just recompense for sin.
When the prodigal son saw the miserable condition into which he had fallen, he bitterly wept for himself, and this marked the beginning of his salvation. It is written: He came to himself—that is, he came to his senses, understood that he had strayed from the true path, and felt the wretchedness of his state. Then he firmly resolved: I will arise and go to my father and will say: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee. These are words of self-condemnation, humility, and repentance. The son says I will arise, meaning that before this, he had been lying in the filth of his sin. Yet he believed in forgiveness, in mercy, in the kindness and compassion of his father. He trusted that his father would not turn away but would pardon him.
In his deep awareness of his unworthiness, which testifies to the sincerity of his repentance, the son desires to say to his father: I am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants—that is, as the lowest of thy household. And as soon as the son made this decision, he set out for home. He was still far from the house when his father—who, perhaps, had gone out many times in hope, gazing into the distance—saw him. Moved with compassion, he ran to meet him, embraced him, kissed him, and brought him into the house. Not a single reproach, not a word of anger, not even a reminder of his reckless folly do we hear from the father—everything is covered by gracious love. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound (Romans 5:20), says the Apostle.
Oh, how boundless is God’s love for the repentant sinner! How limitless is His mercy toward one who returns from the far country, where he had suffered, been alone, and been rejected! In his great joy, the father prepared a great feast to celebrate the return of his son. He commanded his servants to bring the son’s former garments instead of rags, to give him a ring and shoes. The father restores the blessings that the son had lost when he left home. But why does the father do this? Why does he not first demand proof that the son has repented? Because he understands that his son, having overcome shame and fear, has already recognized his guilt and will never again depart from the home where he has been forgiven and received with love.
At this time, the elder son returned home, having never left his father’s house. When he learned that a feast was being held to celebrate his brother’s return, he became angry and refused to enter. Then the father came out of the house and pleaded with the elder son to come inside. The elder son’s indignation reveals the state of his self-righteousness, his envy, and his pride. He does not manifest a son’s heart but the heart of a hireling—he reproaches his father, thinking himself worthy of reward for fulfilling his duties. This is the spirit of the Pharisees, who condemned Christ and resented His acceptance of sinners.
But, brothers and sisters, do we welcome one another in the same way when we see that a loved one returns from a distant land, where sin had carried him away? How often do we hasten to meet the repentant, to comfort, to embrace, and to forgive, even before they can utter words of sorrow for their sins?
Or do we more often behave like the elder son, who saw in the prodigal only a sinner—his father’s son, but no longer his brother? And in doing so, do we not deprive ourselves of the shared feast, which is a symbol of Holy Communion?
Let us reflect on how we practice forgiveness, for soon we will arrive at Forgiveness Sunday. And if we do not know how to forgive, this may turn to our judgment and condemnation. For those whom we often condemn may already have been forgiven and received by the Lord, through their repentance, their sufferings, and their tears.
Dear brothers and sisters!
On the eve of Great Lent, we hear the instructive Parable of the Prodigal Son. From it, we see that repentance is always possible for us, no matter how deeply we have fallen or how far we have strayed from God in our sins. We see the boundless love with which the Heavenly Father is always ready to receive us into His paternal embrace.
Let us hasten, then, to take hold of His mercy in these coming days of fasting. Through humility and repentance, let us correct our sinful lives, so that there may be joy in the Father’s house over the son who was once dead but is alive again, who was lost but is now found!