Parable of the Prodigal Son

[i] In Luke 15, Jesus tells this story, along with those of a man with 100 sheep and a woman with ten coins, to a group of Pharisees and religious leaders who criticized him for welcoming and eating with tax collectors and others seen as sinners.

Upon receiving his portion of the inheritance, the younger son travels to a distant country, where he squanders his wealth through reckless living.

He runs out of money just before a severe famine strikes the land, leaving him desperately poor and forced to take a filthy and low-paying job as a swineherd.

[5] The father calls for his servants to dress the son in the finest robe and put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet and to slaughter the "fatted calf" for a celebratory meal.

The older son, who was at work in the fields, hears the sound of celebration and is told by a slave about the return of his younger brother.

[6] While a number of commentators see the request of the younger son for his share of the inheritance as "brash, even insolent"[7] and "tantamount to wishing that the father was dead,"[7] Jewish legal scholar Bernard Jackson says "Jewish sources give no support to [the idea] that the prodigal, in seeking the advance, wishes his father dead.

"[6] The young man's actions do not lead to success; he squanders his inheritance and he eventually becomes an indentured servant, with the degrading job of looking after pigs, and even envying them for the carob pods they eat.

[vi] Jewish philosopher Philo observes:[6] Parents often do not lose thought for their wastrel (asoton) children [...] In the same way, God too [...] takes thought also for those who live a misspent life, thereby giving them time for reformation, and also keeping within the bounds His own merciful nature.The Pesikta Rabbati has a similar story:[6] A king had a son who had gone astray from his father on a journey of a hundred days.

He renounces the friendship of good men, neglects the services of the Church and the frequenting of the Sacraments, follows his own way, and shamelessly transgresses God's commandments.

[13]Roger Baxter in his Meditations describes the second part: As soon as this young prodigal had left his father's house he fell into misfortunes.

[14]In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the parable of the Prodigal Son is central to the Christian understanding emphasizing God's boundless love for humanity.

Archpriest Victor Potapov encapsulates this as "a multitude of themes...difficult to enumerate", including the historical contrast between God's chosen people and the pagans, the nature of sin (one reason why the parable is read on the third Sunday before Great Lent, also including the subsequent fasting time to encourage spiritual discipline and refreshment),[15] and the process and blessings of repentance.

Potapov cites, Saint Theophan the Recluse compares the sinner with a man sunk into a deep sleep, and in his turning to God he notes three psychological moments that correspond to the parable's events: 1.

James Guirguis puts the message in both plainspoken terms, yet also quoting Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk:[15] How God longs to see us come home!

The loving Father still receives His prodigal sons come back from a far country and He opens the doors of His house and clothes them in the best robe, and gives them each a ring on their hand and shoes on their feet and commands all the saints to rejoice in them."

One common kontakion hymn of the occasion reads: I have recklessly forgotten Your glory, O Father; And among sinners I have scattered the riches which You gave to me.

In his 1984 apostolic exhortation titled, in Latin, Reconciliatio et paenitentia ('Reconciliation and Penance'), Pope John Paul II used this parable to explain the process of conversion and reconciliation.

[26] The parable is referenced in the last verse of the traditional Irish folk tune "The Wild Rover": I'll go home to me parents, confess what I've done and I'll ask them to pardon their prodigal son "Jump Around" by the Los Angeles rap group House of Pain (1992) includes a verse by member Everlast, who references the parable as well as the Bible itself: Word to your moms, I came to drop bombs I got more rhymes than the Bible's got Psalms And just like the Prodigal Son I've returned Anyone stepping to me you'll get burned Another literary tribute to this parable is Dutch theologian Henri Nouwen's 1992 book, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming, in which he describes his own spiritual journey infused with understanding, based on an encounter with Rembrandt's painting that depicts the son's return.

[32] An earlier work with similarities to the parable is "Le retour de l'enfant prodigue" ('The Return of the Prodigal Son'), a short story by André Gide.

[36][37] The theme of the Prodigal Son plays a major role in Anne Tyler's novel A Spool of Blue Thread.

[vii] In one of his clemency petitions to the Bombay Presidency in 1913, the Indian independence activist Vinayak Damodar Savarkar described himself as a "prodigal son" longing to return to the "parental doors of the government".

The father then lets the son leave without telling him of their kinship, providing him with a heap of straw to sleep on and employment clearing a pile of dirt.