The Road Home

The parable of the Prodigal Son, also known as the parable of the Two Sons or the parable of the Father, tells the story of two sons who make different choices. One son asks for his inheritance now and leaves the house of his Father to squander his inheritance in a "distant country." After he has exhausted his wealth, he is reduced to poverty and so returns home whereupon his Father runs out to embrace him.

This parable is often given as an example of how anyone, who has lived apart from God or fallen away, can turn back, repent and be welcomed back by God in a loving embrace. It is a good message, but there is so much more here. The Church Fathers interpreted "distant country" to be symbolic of man's condition after the Fall, which distanced us from the presence of God. And the prodigal son represents all of us who in this distant country decide to journey back home, back towards the Father.

I notice that the repentance, the turning back to God, is not immediately rewarded. In a world without airplanes or automobiles, it takes a long time to travel to a distant country. The son's journey away from God may have been faster because when he departed he could afford camels to carry him. But on his journey back, he is destitute and therefore must journey on foot. The journey home, to Israel, likely requires the crossing of deserts, sleepless nights with a hungry stomach, and the physical pains that accompany such a journey like blisters, sunburns and soreness.

This journey of the son is analogous to the journey of Israel itself through the desert after they had thrown off the slavery of Egypt and set off towards the promised land. The Israelites faced many hardships, but God traveled with them. Not only did the Israelites travel toward God but they also traveled with God and God provided for them, most notably in the form of manna. Manna is the bread that God gave his children to sustain them in their travel to the Promised Land. Likewise, God sustains us on our journey home through the desert with the new manna - the body of Christ (the Eucharist), so that we travel towards God with God.