Obviously, this parable is often used to demonstrate the mercy of God and the difference between how the Father sees things in mercy and how the faithful son sees things as the more practical. However, there is another element of this story that I think we need to look at this week.

Let us remember that this is a fiction story. It is a parable and it is not representative of actual events. However, Jesus uses a formula common to fiction writing in this parable. The formula is that the main character must change by the end of the story and the climax of the story is where everything comes together.

Using that understanding of the fiction formula, you could teach how to write fiction based on this parable, it follows the classic formula. Therefore, let us look at another element in it. The father and the faithful son apparently do not change. Therefore, their character remains the same throughout the story. This gives us a better understanding of whom they are. We may even understand more about them, than the main character, the Prodigal Son. We will look at that reality in a second.

We can focus on the Father’s mercy, but let us instead focus on what the son learns, because this becomes quite serious in our lives.

The son leaves the Father and with all that money becomes filled with himself. He needs nothing, he has got his money and his money is power. He can become his own god of his own life and do what he thinks is best. When he ends up flying through his money and ends up on the pig farm with nothing, he comes to a powerful understanding. Ultimately, on his own, he is nothing. He has nothing, he has no value, he actually has at best the same value as the pigs and is treated that way. By himself, he really has no base for his existence as human being. He has base for his existence as animal, but not as human.

Now, when he returns to his father, he offers to be nothing more than a slave. He recognizes that he lost his dignity as human when he left. However, remember, to ask to be a slave or even a little higher, a servant is a step up from where he is and a long way down from the dignity that he gave up.

Now let’s take a turn. What would happen if the Father said “no” like the faithful son wanted him to do. The prodigal comes and begs to be treated like a slave and the father says “No, you no good lazy lout. You disgraced the family, you left us doing one third more work than we needed to. Actually, your brother has had to do the work of two because of you. Get out of here, I will chase you out of here like a bad dog.”

What would the son have? Nothing. He would not have money, but also he would be without his human dignity. He would be left to live with the pigs until he died of exposure or starvation or in prison. He would have nothing. The other son and the father would have died with their dignity in tact and the son would have died alone, broken and dehumanized.

Before we do that exercise where we ask ourselves if we better identify with the father, the faithful son or the prodigal son: let us ask look at one more point here. The prodigal son returns to his original dignity through no power of his own, but only through the generosity of the Father. Everything he ever had was from the father and everything he receives after he gives up his dignity and loses his money is from the father. Apart from the father he has nothing. Neither does the faithful son. Remember, the father tells him that everything he has this faithful son will inherit. Outside of the generosity of the Father, one or both sons would have nothing.

Let us put that in our own lives. You and I have nothing without God, nothing. Remember, the father is reminiscent of the heavenly father. It is His generosity that gets us through every day. For good or ill, when we wake up in the morning, it is only through the generosity of the father that you and I have anything from our various sense, our life, to the dignity that we have.

God is a generous God and through Him we have everything including our future.

Now let us go to the next step: every single human being on this planet has the same offering of dignity that you have. You can talk about the worst dictator, the murderer doing life, the good servant, the holy monk and the Pope as well as you and I, each of us have been given the gift of human dignity and the invitation to accept the gift of eternal life with God. To not believe that simple fact is to not believe in the Catholic doctrine of salvation.

However, all of it comes from the generosity of God and Him alone. Everyone who stands on their own strength and celebrates their own gifts is like the prodigal son, they may never lose anything, they may never end up with pigs, they may even die rich, however they will never enter the kingdom of God unless that gift is bestowed on them by the heavenly father and they accept it. There is nothing that they have or can do that can force the Father’s hand. Everything is in his hands.

When we accept this, we find ourselves recognizing just how generous God is and how much we rely on Him. We rely on him ultimately for all things.

What the prodigal son learned in that experience is not just the mercy of the Father, but how much the Father is the reason why he was alive at all.

You are only because God is! That is a philosophical statement that means, that God’s existence is the reason for yours. Yours is not the cause of His.

When you are going through your daily routine whether you are having a good week or a bad week, remember that every breath you take, every movement you make, every gift you have, every morsel of food you eat is all because of the generosity of the Father. This is something the faithful son never understood and the prodigal son learned the hard way.

St. Paul reminds us to dedicate ourselves to thankfulness. It is considered the secret to holiness. If you do that that you will discover the awful truth. Apart from Christ not only can you do nothing, you ultimately have nothing. In Christ you have everything by God’s generosity. Celebrate what God has done for you each and every day.

God Bless You,

Fr. Robert J. Carr
Fr. Carr is an Alliance member of the New Song Community. He is the pastor of St. Benedict Parish in Somerville, MA EUA and is the editor of this blog.

Photo Credits all Bigstockphoto.com
From Top:
soupstock
kjpargeter
peter polak
timcanada
donnacuic