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The Holy Church, wanting to awaken repentance in our hearts, presents to us the Savior's parable about the prodigal son. What a wonderful parable this is! Every feature of her breathes life and strength. Each feature, although simple and natural, is full of deep thoughts. How vividly and fully the sinner is represented in it on the paths of his error! How touchingly the repentance of a sinner is depicted! In what amazing images is shown the love of the Heavenly Father for his criminal deeds! This parable was proposed by the Savior when the Pharisees and scribes blamed Him for eating and drinking with sinners (Luke 15:1-2). It is to them that He shows how an obvious sinner, when he sincerely turns to God, is accepted by the Heavenly Father, and how one who dreams of his own righteousness turns out to be unjust before God. Intending to consistently explain this wonderful parable of the Savior, for the first time we will present a picture of a sinner. “A certain man had two sons. And the youngest said to their father: Father, give me a worthy part of the estate. And divide the property among them” (Luke 15:11–12). “And the youngest speech.” Why not the eldest? The Savior, in this case, wants to keep the advantage of the imaginary righteous man, beloved by the Pharisees, the advantage of primacy. In such thoughts He portrays a young man who wants to appear mature before his time and is impatiently awaiting the death of his father. “Father, give me a worthy part of the estate.” A young man wants to separate from his father, who oversees his life; he wants to be at his own will, he wants to dispose of his life at his own discretion. A kind, gentle father gives him everything he needs; but he dreams of freedom. Just as a father has a right, so a son points out his right. Why shouldn’t a son live only by love for his father instead of living by his rights? Doesn't he weaken the feelings of filial love when he replaces them with other impulses? Or the good father could not give a share to his son himself, whenever he considered it necessary? The son is looking for freedom. This is the beginning, this is the first step of the soul’s retreat from the Heavenly Father! Apparently there is nothing criminal when they want to use freedom as a gift from God. But this thirst for freedom, this insistent demand for it is already a matter of self-will, pride appropriating for ourselves what does not belong to us. What does our true freedom mean? True freedom, such as the freedom of the saints, is silent, voluntary submission to the will of the Heavenly Father. When they seek freedom for themselves, it means they are burdened to be under the power of God, they want to live not according to the will of God, they allow themselves to have freedom at will. Pride is offended by someone else’s power, and at its secret suggestion, they make up rules for themselves that are inconsistent with the love of God, they breed thoughts that rebel against the faith God has given to us, they multiply desires that are defiled by the breath of either pride or carnal impurity. Thus, with our own will, the first step for us is not only a criminal step, but a step that draws us from crime to crime. This is why Christianity so decisively demands that we renounce our will! “And divide their property.” The father could deny his son his whimsical desire and force him to live under the legal authority of his father: but what father would want to keep his son in the position of a slave? Likewise, the Heavenly Father, what blessings has not been given to us at our disposal! God's possessions are everything that we receive when we are born: the mind, the heart, freedom, and external blessings. And everything that we have in spiritual life is the gift of God’s grace. Our property is only a nonentity, as the blessed one puts it. Augustine, and what is worse than nothingness is sin. The Heavenly Father does not prevent us from disposing of ourselves according to our will. He is the Father of truth and love. According to the demands of truth, He does not force us to do good against our will and rewards free service to Him. At the request of love, He grants the freedom He has given to act according to its will, but in the very deviations from the law, He gives it various admonitions. These are the works of God! They are holy. But we are sinners when we stop looking at what we receive from the Lord as gifts from God, and look at them as our own property; when we think with self-pleasure: these are our abilities, these are our knowledge, these are our virtues, these are our wealth, these are our merits. Pathetic, dangerous self-delusion! “And not for many days, my son having gathered all, departed into a far country, and there he squandered his substance, living fornication” (Luke 15:13). For a few days, conscience could still keep the headstrong son in the house of the father who loves him so much. But then the passions that secretly prompted him to ask for an inheritance drew him to a distant country. How many of us, having noticed movements of criminal self-will in ourselves, stop at not going further along the path of sin? Unfortunately, as soon as a weak soul slips once, it quickly moves on and leaves for a distant land. Having stepped out from under the control of the Spirit of God and given in to the attraction of a corrupt heart, she goes from crime to crime, from vice to vice, further and further from God. God is everywhere; but the sinner removes the thought of God from himself, loses sight of him, plunging into the darkness of vices. God is everywhere; but His gracious light does not penetrate into the sinner’s heart, encountering an obstacle in the soul’s addiction to sin. Having given himself over to the striving of the passions, the sinner becomes far from the Divine life, and the grace of God moves away from him, abhorring his impurities. “And waste your wealth, you living whore.” Sinner! Look at yourself, haven’t you lost the gifts of God through a life of crime? Look at yourself, what were you and what are you now? You have been given a mind capable of elevating you to the contemplation of the mysteries of God. But how you humiliated, how you spoiled the gift of God, using it to serve the passions! Where does he look for food? He does not like the book of eternal life - the Holy Gospel; he finds joy in books that are either godless or unclean, or those where they talk only about earthly benefits. “You were given a good, God-fearing heart, capable of opening up to heavenly impressions, but now you have it that is callous and evil, and is all permeated with the impurities of lust.” Is your conscience, which was so attentive, now still picky in relation to good and bad, or has it no longer bothered you about bad things? Where have the invaluable gifts of grace gone that should be multiplied? Where are the clothes of purity and innocence that you were clothed with in the baptismal font? What good remains in your soul? There is nothing there except the passions of sinners: there breathes either a passion for earthly fame, or a passion for dissipation, or a passion for smoldering wealth. “I have outlived everything for him, and the famine was strong in that country, and it began to be deprived of it” (Luke 15:14). The reckless son thought that he, living on his own free will, would always live cheerfully, would live as his soul desired. And so his dreams dissipated. He suffers from poverty. Was there ever a land of error and vice, that region where the scattered soul lives, was there ever a land of abundance and contentment? Oh! there is always poverty and poverty, always severe hunger. The only thing is that the sinful soul, in the child of passions, does not notice its situation for a long time; For a long time she does not feel that poverty is pressing on her, that severe hunger is exhausting her. If she begins to see her poverty, then this is always due to the secret action of God’s grace, calling the lost one to return to her native home. “Started to lose”: how much is said about the internal state of the sinner! For some time he lived in the rapture of feelings and did not understand himself. But then he begins to feel that his soul is not good; begins to feel boredom, languor, emptiness. “And he went to cleave to one of the inhabitants of that country. And that messenger sent him to a village to feed a pig” (Luke 15:15). The son of a rich father, a son who was burdened by such tender power as the power of his father, out of the needs of poverty gives himself into slavery to a stranger, and he sends him to graze pigs. What a humiliation! Why does the unfortunate man, oppressed by poverty and need, not return to his father, who loves him tenderly? Why, instead of dooming himself to a low lot, does he not rush to his parents’ house, rich and deceased? Doesn't the same thing happen to a sinful soul? Why then, since by the grace of God she feels the emptiness of her life, does she not hurry to return to the Heavenly Father? No, self-will draws her further into the path of sin. The sinner tries to fill the emptiness of the soul with gross materiality and gives himself into slavery to sin. - “Be attached to the one inhabitant of that country.” Residents of a country far from the house of the Heavenly Father are souls who live in oblivion of God and are “given over... to a depraved mind to do lewd things” (Rom. 1:28). A lost soul, but still feeling itself and its position, is not yet among the dead. But unhappy, in order to drown out her longing for her homeland, she begins to lead the lowest life. And her mind, her heart, and her will are enslaved to sin. At times the mind wants to free itself from the power of sensuality and the poor heart sighs for holy freedom: but it gives in to the power of skills and the charms of sin; and the unfortunate one grazes and feeds sensual bestial lusts, the vileness of which is so disgusting. Pathetic condition! “And he desired to fill his belly with the flesh of a swine, and no one gave it to him” (Luke 15:16). The dissolute son, covered in shame, deprived of his daily bread, was finally abandoned by everyone; Tormented by hunger, he wants to be satisfied with what unclean animals eat. But even that is denied to him with contempt. What a sad picture! The world is a cruel master. He is not generous to those who enter his service; At the very beginning, he promises the new servant nothing more than the position of a pig shepherd, but then he begins to clearly neglect those who have humiliated themselves morally. The world is especially cruel to them when their happiness leaves them. But the world does its own thing, and good Providence has its own thing in mind. The Heavenly Father, who invisibly controls the course of human affairs, puts the depraved sinner in a hopeless situation in order to allow him to feel himself. Dissolving judgment with mercy, He exposes the sinner to adversity, loss of livelihood, illness, dishonor, in order to soften his hardened heart through painful experiences and bring him to himself. Listeners! the picture of the sinner's errors is gloomy. Why is she depicted? Is it not in order to strengthen pious souls in piety through the fear of troubles brought upon us by sin? Is it not so that those who had the misfortune of falling into the position of a lost son would come to their senses with the terrible picture of a lost life? Lord, Lord! Bring down Your light into the depths of our hearts, so that, illuminated by it, we will tremble before sin as before the most terrible disaster! Amen. You might be interested in: