Augustine Sokolovski
Today is the second preparatory Sunday for Great Lent. It is the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, named after the content of the Gospel reading, which is read during the Sunday liturgy. This is a rather lengthy reading from the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, verses 11-32. It is difficult to find any sacred, historical or any other text that would have such a huge impact on the formation of human history and the foundations of our civilization. This is evidenced by works of art, images of literature and even idiomatic expressions in different languages.
The parable has a basic theological interpretation based on the Church Fathers. So, the Father from the parable is our God. The younger son is the Gentiles, the older son is the Jewish people. Both were given the ability to know God, they were given rational, mental, physical and other natural resources. Both were sons equally. But the younger son took his inheritance from his father in advance during his life. Then he squandered this inheritance and himself degraded.
The elder son always stayed with his father. But when he saw that the youngest son was returning and his father was taking him into his arms, he was filled with anger. “He got angry and did not want to enter”, says the Gospel. Under the image of the younger son who was lost but returned and repented, the parable points to the pagans. They ended up receiving an abundance of blessings. Israel, the eldest Son of God, envied the pagans, and turned out to refuse to believe in Jesus and therefore remains outside the Church. The fact that Scripture can call Israel the son of God should not confuse us. Let us remember the words of the Prophet Hosea: When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt (Hosea 11:11).
This is the general theological interpretation of the parable. It is very important. And for us, as the people of God, the Wandering Church of the New Israel, it means a reason for constantly thanking God for our calling to him. Lent is a long, forty-day long, day of Thanksgiving. The Sunday of the Prodigal Son is a milestone in preparation for this journey.
The parable also has a very important moral significance. The father and the sons are not only great Biblical images, but they are concrete human everyday reality. The younger of two sons returned to his father’s house when he realized his inability to survive. He declared himself bankrupt as we constantly hear in our totally economic reality. In this world the Church seems so forgotten that it seems has come to change the words we are accustomed to and say: There is no salvation outside the market. But no, this is despair and despondency. Despondency is a mortal sin. This is the collapse of self-reliance and a labyrinth of hopelessness.
There are phenomena in the Church that by their very appearance are meant to personify opposition to sin, and the world, that lies in wickedness (1 John 5 :19). This is monasticism. “Angels are light for monks and monks are light for laymen”, - this is an axiom of the Orthodox understanding of holiness. The understanding of holiness has changed throughout history. But now it really sounds sometimes like this.
The Orthodox Church does not consider monasticism one of the seven sacraments but perceives it as the revelation of the sacrament of baptism and repentance. In this case the word revelation itself is reminiscent of biblical revelation, and it sounds like a warning. In the life of the Church there are many such warning realities. For God is the one who warns and takes you by surprise.
The ritual of Orthodox tonsure into monasticism is a special ritual. It is incredibly beautiful and filled with amazing spiritual power. It seems that every Orthodox Christian should visit it at least once. Why are we talking about this now? Because the very rite of Orthodox monasticism, that is, it’s texts, meanings and images, is built around the parable of the Prodigal son. Those who wish to take monasticism vows literally crawl to their spiritual father and ask for monastic consecration. At the same time, it turns out that in the light of what has just been said, this is an iconographic image of all modern Orthodox spirituality.
“Open your fatherly arms to me”, this is how the hymn of monastic tonsure begins. It is a kind of creed. “Open your fatherly arms to me. I have wasted my life prodigally, looking indifferently at the inexhaustible wealth of Your mercies, o Savior! Do not despise now my impoverished heart. For to You, Lord, I cry out in tenderness: I have sinned, o Father, against Heaven and before You”. This is the text of the hymn of the monastic consecration.
The Church is not only monasticism. But monasticism is a kind of condensation of spiritual, penitential, internal church reality. What should we do when one becomes a monk for the sake of a career, future advancement towards episcopacy, or preservation on the social clerical ladder? What should we do when we come to Church not for repentance and return to the arms of our God and Father, but for the sake of the wealth, of well-being and health? How can we understand and hear the parable of the Prodigal son?
“I know your works, and the tribulation, and the poverty, and the blasphemy of those who claim to be the people of God; and they are not, but are the Synagogue of Satan”, - says the Apocalypse (Revelation 2:9). We are Orthodox Christians. God and the World have no others. If we come to God only outwardly, then we are committing a great apocalyptic profanation. We dress the Church, this body of Christ, in the devil’s clothing. Let’s return to the parable of the Prodigal son. The world is our older brother. He longs to come to God. But he will never come in and will remain crying at the threshold.