After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings
and set off to a distant country
where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.
The younger son followed the path of the tenants who would not provide their fruit to the landowner. Just as they kept the harvest for themselves, so too did the younger son insist on enjoying his inheritance apart from his father and his family. The tenants finally chose to kill the landowner's son who threatened their autonomy. The younger son in today's parable did not got so far, but by asking for his share of the estate while his father was still alive he really was saying something like that he wished his father were dead. In the younger son we see what happens whenever we try to keep the fruit for ourselves, to act as if the vineyard is ours, and to manage it on our own. We see that none of the estate of our Father will amount to much without him.
When he had freely spent everything,
a severe famine struck that country,
and he found himself in dire need.
When we try to have the good things of this world apart from God we may get along well enough for a time. But eventually events like famine will occur, cracks in our control will appear, and our own finitude will be revealed. Nothing that the Father has made will be enough to keep us secure and happy without the Father himself.
Coming to his senses he thought,
‘How many of my father’s hired workers
have more than enough food to eat,
but here am I, dying from hunger.
When we wish our Father dead, when we try to kill the landowner's son who threatens our control of the vineyard, it is really we ourselves who choose death, because we turn our backs on the source of our life. As sons and daughters, our life is from the Father. As tenants, the vineyard we are given to work is a gift of the landowner. Cut off from the source of life we move inexorably toward death.
I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing (see John 15:5).
It is important to realize that even for those who do not turn their backs on God entirely, there is still usually a degree to which we try to keep and use the good things he has made apart from him, to keep spheres of independence in our own lives as though to serve as backup plans for when God lets us down. Even these things, good in themselves, such as friends, family, entertainment, and learning, and legitimate physical pleasures, when disconnected from their source will lose their ability to nourish us. Though meant to give life they will instead bring death. For example, if such things hinder our ability to respond to God, if we insist on them even though we know he is calling us, we will not even experience the joy that such things might give at other times. They may still provide some pleasure, but with an undercurrent of uncertainty and a lack of peace.
Most important is to realize how merciful is our God. We often fail to recognize just how much our Father loves us. We have learned a inherited from Adam a habitual mistrust of him that only grace can overcome. We have a disposition that pulls us toward choosing lesser things because the higher things seem intimidating or not as rewarding as "a life of dissipation". When we realize the degree to which we have snubbed God by our choices we might fear that our relationship could never be the same again. But no, more than just the same, it can be better. We can truly realize his love for us and come to trust him.
While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.
Our act of contrition is important. We must concretely acknowledge the problem lest we give in to the same temptation again. But in this confession it is not as though we are appeasing in angry God. He is rather waiting, barely able to contain himself, till we are finished, so that he can give us absolution and restore us to his family.
But his father ordered his servants,
‘Quickly, bring the finest robe and put it on him;
put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Take the fattened calf and slaughter it.
Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found.’
Sometimes we do continue to act in the right way, but with the same sort of mistrust in our Father that the younger son demonstrated. When we live like the older son, obeying out of obligation, we may not go hungry or experience death. But we are missing out on the fullness of life that we are meant to have, which has always been available to us had we only realized how much the Father loved us.
‘My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
The elder son was continuing to live in his father's house like a worker or a slave. He did not fully understand what it meant to be the son of so generous and loving a father. It is very much like when we see a new convert filled with the zeal of conversion and the joy of the Holy Spirit. We think to ourselves, 'Where is my joy? Where is my zeal?' It has always been there for us. In Christ everything was already given and is already ours. The greatest feast imaginable is always available to us in the Eucharist. We simply need to recognize if, though we were close to him by way of bodily observance, our hearts have been far from the Father. When we draw near to him we can realize that the party is not just for the younger son. We too must celebrate and rejoice together with all the dead who have come to life again, and with all the lost who have been found.
Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead,
as in the days of old;
As in the days when you came from the land of Egypt,
show us wonderful signs.
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