Ponderings for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son

1) From C.S. Lewis:  "The gates of hell are locked from the inside."
2) From Saint Augustine of Hippo:  "There are two loves: of the world, and of God.  If the love of the world inhabits, there is no way for the love of God to enter.... You are a vessel, but as yet you are full.  Pour out what you have, so that you may receive what you do not have."
3)  From Saint John Climacus:  "If the Holy Spirit is peace of soul, as He is said to be, and as He is in truth, and if anger is disturbance of heart, as it actually is and as it is said to be, then nothing so prevents His presence in us as anger."

As we consider the Parable of the Prodigal, it is critically important to keep in mind that God gives to us the free will to create a hell for ourselves, and that entering therein (of our own free will), we can effectively lock out all who are outside, even God Himself.  And any place where God is not, that place is the definition of hell.

The Prodigal was filled with self.  He loved the world.  There was no room in him for the Father.  And the Father, recognizing this, sent him away to endure the suffering that He knew would come, but praying that the suffering would bring His son to his senses.  Once the Prodigal emptied himself of the world, he was only then able to receive what he had never recognized from the Father - His unconditional love.

The elder brother in the parable has so filled himself with anger for his brother that he has locked himself within his own hell.  The Father goes to the celebration of the return of His younger son.  The room is open to the elder brother, but he has locked the gates to the place in which he finds himself from the inside.  There is nothing that the Father could or would do to force him to give us his own free will to join the love of the Father again.  The elder son's anger has locked out the Spirit, blinded him to his own need for the same repentance that his younger brother needed, sought, and was rewarded with the Father's forgiveness.  Just as talents are not the same, neither are sins.  Envy over talents is not rational, nor is envy over how great we might perceive forgiveness to another to be.  If we believe, as today's elder brother does, that our sins are less than another, our hearts are already in the wrong place......