Sunday of the Prodigal Son
1 Corinthians 6:12-20; Luke 15:11-32
St. Paul’s epistle helps us to frame our understanding of the story of the prodigal son. The Prodigal son didn’t have a noble motive for leaving his father. He was motivated by base passions rather than charity. His actions lacked piety, chivalry, and the application of right reason. It is important that we do not blindly follow our passions and just do whatever we feel like doing, especially when it comes to chastity. St Luke said, the prodigal son was “longing to be fed”. The Greek word for “longing” here is ἐπιθυμία (epithumia), which is the same word the Greek Fathers use to talk about unbridled passions, heedless of reason or virtuous motive. Sin had real consequences for the prodigal son who squandered his inheritance with loose living and sensuality. The Prodigal son’s reckless passion stripped him of every material and spiritual good, cutting him off from love and family.
The Fathers of the Church explain the passage allegorically, focusing on a deeper, mystical interpretation of the story. The prodigal son can be seen as a type of Adam and his father is our heavenly Father. Adam’s inheritance is his soul, made in the image and likeness of God, endowed with intellect and will, and the gift of divine revelation. St Ambrose says that “the Divine patrimony is given to them that seek it.” The intellectual life of man is oriented toward the truth and the will is oriented toward the good, and the sinner finds neither when he departs in his heart from God the Father and seeks his own way. The man who desires to preserve his image and likeness to God, does not depart from God but clings to Him in love. The lawless sinner, on the other hand, grows cold, senseless, and animal-like when he departs from Truth. Departing to a far country means forgetfulness of God which exhausts the soul, and the famine in the parable represents a lack of truth and good works. There is no greater poverty than to abandon wisdom, communion with God, and the life of virtue, which is our heavenly wealth.
The Fathers tell us these husks (pig feed) filled the belly but had no nourishment—just like the unsatisfying lies and vanities of the world give us fleeting pleasure but do not sustain our spirit. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4) If we cut ourselves off from Christ, we lose all sense of created order, chastity, knowledge of truth, and remembrance of God. The prodigal son is sent to the pigs, meaning he nourishes his soul with unclean thoughts and evil conversations. But then he finally comes to himself, meaning he realizes this is not what he was made for, and decides to humbly ask his father to forgive him and take him back, and the father runs to meet him, symbolizing that we can’t come to the Father except by grace. The grace of conversion allowed the son to change from a life of vice to a life of virtue, he was no longer lost but found, and his father clothed him with the garment of salvation.
The celebration feast in this parable is an allegory of the Divine Liturgy. The Father puts a robe on his son symbolizing the dignity and wisdom lost by Adam but restored to man through holy baptism, and a ring on his finger, which signifies the marriage of Christ to His Church. The fattened calf is Christ, whom the Father hands over to be sacrificed for the eternal banquet, the Body and Blood, which feeds the household of faith. Let us then shun the vanities of the world and cleave to the Father in our hearts. Let us beg His mercy so that we can embrace Him and rejoice with Him today, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.