The parable which is usually called the "Parable of the Prodigal Son", was called the "Parable of the Two Sons", in the early ages of the Church. Indeed, the parable involves both the sons and their father in such a way that it would be meaningless with the loss of any of these characters. Also, in the public mind, the word "prodigal" has come to mean someone who is lost. The word actually has "spendthrift" for its synonym, a significant distinction. Our familiarity with this lengthy parable may cause us to think that we know it well, but a few words from a sermon by the Englishman St. Bede (d. 735) will help us to understand the deeper meaning of the younger son's degraded state:
" 'After not many days, when he had gathered all his substance, he went to a faraway country, and there he lost it by riotous living.' He went far away not by changing his location but by changing his soul. As much as he lost in sinful deeds, so far did he depart from the grace of God. That it says that he left as a wanderer to a faraway land after gathering his substance 'after not many days', is similar to the fact that it was not long after the creation of the human race that it was pleasing to the soul to take with it her substance -- the power of her nature -- and, through its free will, to abandon him by whom she was made, directing her own powers. To the extent that the soul quickly consumed its powers, so far did she abandon him who gave them. This life is called 'prodigal' because it loves to pour out and spread empty pomps while becoming empty within, the soul following those things which went forth from her, and deserting the One within her.
" 'And after he had wasted everything, a terrible famine came upon that country.' Everything that he wasted signifies the adornments of nature, which he consumed. The 'famine' in the faraway country is the poverty of words of truth in forgetting the Creator. The Prophet says: 'The Lord shall send a famine upon the earth: not a famine of bread, nor a famine of water, but a famine of hearing the words of God' (Amos 8, 11).
" 'And he began to hunger, and he departed and clung to one of the citizens of that country.' It is right that he hungered, for he had abandoned the treasures of the wisdom of God, and the height of heavenly riches. The 'citizen of that country', to whom he clung, is called by The Lord, 'the prince of this world' (John 14, 30). The Apostle says of him: 'The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unfaithful' (2 Corinthians 4, 4).
" 'And he sent him to his farm to feed his pigs.' To be 'sent to the farm' means to be made subject to one's longing for worldly substance. In another parable, a man is invited to a spiritual banquet and, disdaining it, said: 'I have bought a farm, and it is needful for me to go see it' (Luke 14, 18). To 'feed the pigs' means to engage in those works which cause the unclean spirits to rejoice.
" 'And he longed to fill his stomach with the husks which the pigs ate.' The 'husks' with which he fed the pigs are the worldly doctrines that resound with sterile sweetness with which men proclaim the praise of the gods of the Gentiles in fables by word or by song, which delights the demons. This man longed to fill himself with something solid and right but because he wished to find this food in such things as this, he could not."
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