Homily for the 34th Sunday after Pentecost
(Sunday of the Prodigal Son)
On True Repentance and the Mercy of God
By St. Cleopa of Sihastria
(Sunday of the Prodigal Son)
On True Repentance and the Mercy of God
By St. Cleopa of Sihastria
“I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you” (Luke 15:18)
Beloved faithful,
In Holy Scripture God is called the “Father of mercies” (2 Corinthians 1:3), because He continually shows mercy to sinners who return to Him with all their heart through true repentance. God says through the Prophet Isaiah: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). In another place, through the same Prophet, God says: “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes; cease to do evil… Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:16–18).
This truth was also fulfilled in the case of the prodigal son from the Holy Gospel that was read today. First, he came to himself; he longed for the happiness he had enjoyed when he was in his father’s house; then he said: “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger!” (Luke 15:17). These were the words of the prodigal son when he came to himself — that is, when he began to recognize the weight of his sins. Without this feeling and awakening, none of the sinners can return with all their heart to the all-good God.
What was the hunger of the prodigal son when he said, “and I perish here with hunger”? Was he thinking of bodily food? No. God says through the Holy Prophet Isaiah: “Behold, My servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry; behold, My servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty; behold, My servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame… My servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart” (Isaiah 65:13–14).
This was the great hunger of the prodigal son. He remembered the time when he lived in his father’s house and the spiritual nourishment and delight he had beside him. Having become a keeper of swine in a foreign land, far from God, the hunger of his soul for righteousness made him say: “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish here with hunger!”
What was his nourishment while he was in the paternal house? This spiritual food, which he had now lost, consisted of his good deeds: faith, hope, love, prayer, self-restraint, purity, and all the other virtues that are truly the food of the soul. The Savior, in His conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar, fed her through His gift, winning her soul. Therefore, when the Apostles urged Him to eat, He said to them: “I have food to eat that you do not know” (John 4:32). “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (John 4:34). For whoever does a good deed for his own soul, or for the salvation of his neighbor, truly feeds his soul with the gift of God. The prodigal son, knowing his pitiable condition and intending to return to his Father with great humility, no longer considered himself worthy to be called his father’s son. Therefore, when he came to his father, he said: “I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants” (Luke 15:19).
There are three states of those who are saved. The first state is that of sons — that is, those who with great love serve God with all their heart and with all the strength of their will strive to keep His commandments. Of these the divine Scripture says: “Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psalm 118[119]:97).
The second group is that of hired servants, who, seeking a reward, strive to fulfill God’s commandments in order to obtain the eternal blessedness of His Kingdom. Of these it is written: “I incline my heart to perform Your statutes forever, for a reward” (Psalm 118[119]:112).
The third state is that of slaves — that is, those who, fearing God’s punishment for transgressing His commandments, strive to keep all His commandments, according to the testimony that says: “Pierce my flesh with Your fear, for I am afraid of Your judgments” (Psalm 118[119]:120).
Thus, the prodigal son, thinking that even the hired servants — that is, those who keep God’s commandments for a reward — receive spiritual gifts and partake of them, asked his Father to be received into the paternal house at least as a hired servant. This return of his with all his heart to his father, and his great humility in asking to be received as a hired servant, proved to be of great benefit to him; for he was not received as a hired servant, but as a true son who returned with all his heart. We see from today’s Holy Gospel that, while he was still far off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him (Luke 15:20).
Beloved faithful,
But what do we understand by the words: “While he was still far off, his father saw him”? This shows us that the all-good and all-knowing God, even before the sinful person cries out “I have sinned,” knows the decision in his heart to return to Him. That is why He received him with such joy and no longer mentioned the weight of his sins with which he had grieved Him. He gave him the first robe — that is, the state of dispassion with which he was clothed when he was with his father. He put a ring on his hand, the sign of the former bond when he lived a pure and blameless life, before he separated from his father. And after giving him the first robe and the ring and shoes on his feet — that is, a firm will to walk in the way of God’s commandments — he said to his servants: “Bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:23–24).
Oh, the goodness and fatherly love of our all-good God! How inexpressible is His mercy, and how countless are His compassions toward those who return to Him with all their heart! With what fatherly love He receives His sons who were lost through sin, who return with great repentance and humility — and what joy there is in heaven when a sinner returns to repentance!
Great and boundless is God’s mercy toward sinners who return to Him with all their heart, with all humility, and with a firm resolve to amend their life.
In the Parable of the Prodigal Son we see that he had not yet performed deeds of repentance — that is, he had not yet fulfilled the penance for the sins with which he had grieved his father. But merely by coming to himself and recognizing the miserable condition he had reached through his separation from his father, he drew upon himself the mercy and compassion of his father, who received him with such joy and celebration. Truly, my brothers, humility and repentance forgive many sins even without other good deeds. What good deeds could the thief crucified beside Christ perform, when his hands and feet were bound? Yet his heartfelt cry was enough: “Remember me, Lord, when You come into Your Kingdom” (Luke 23:42). And the Savior immediately answered him: “Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
Well did the divine Apostle Paul say: “The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Well did Saint Ephraim the Syrian also say: “Repentance, without sacrifices and without expenses, can reconcile and move God to mercy. Repentance put an end to the bloody sacrifice, offering the sacrifice of conscience. It does not seek a kid, but confession. It does not ask for a sheep for sacrifice, but confession from the conscience. Do you not have a turtledove for sacrifice, you who have sinned? Sigh, and God will count it for you as something greater than a turtledove. Do you not have a bird? Weep, and it will be counted to you as a sacrifice. Do you not have a dove? Confess your sins to God, and they will be for you a burnt offering. If you pray, God will receive your prayer as a sacrificial calf. Oh, how great is repentance! Oh, how wonderful are the things that come from it! For though it is one, it can do all things.” “Oh, the gift of the Gospel, for Jesus has fulfilled the whole Law! The people become their own priest in the Church, for they have the conscience that offers sacrifice for them. From the heart they pray and obtain God’s mercy for themselves.”
Beloved faithful,
Today’s Sunday, that of the Prodigal Son, is the second Sunday of the Triodion, which prepares us spiritually for the beginning and beneficial passage of the Holy and Great Fast of Pascha. The Gospel read today is very beautiful and edifying for the soul. The father who had two sons is our heavenly Father. The elder son symbolizes good Christians who are obedient to God, and the younger son symbolizes bad and disobedient Christians, like him.
Among the obedient Christians are all the children of Christ’s Church who fulfill His commandments with holiness. They regularly attend church services, pray day and night, obey God and the appointed shepherds, give birth to and raise children in the fear of the Lord, confess and partake regularly of the Holy Mysteries, live humbly, and give alms to the poor. They do everything with joy, blessing, and prayer. Therefore God helps them in all things.
But it is not so with disobedient Christians enslaved by sins, like the younger son in the Gospel. Among these are those who do not go to church on Sundays, those who kill their children, drunkards, blasphemers who curse holy things, the immoral, the greedy, the miserly, and above all the proud — at the head of whom are the sects. For what are sectarians, if not rebellious, proud, and disobedient Christians who do not want to listen to the Church founded by Christ, but make laws and dogmas according to their own mind, like the younger son in the Gospel? All these have fallen from obedience; they are far from Christ, from the Church, from the Saints, and they quarrel over Holy Scripture, which they interpret according to their own will. But whoever falls away from obedience and from the Church also falls away from God.
How dreadful is the sin of disobedience! How hard it is to live by your own mind, to listen to no one, to distance yourself from God, from faith, from prayer, from the Church, from the priest, and from the parents who gave you birth. Thus did the young man in the Gospel act: “Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me”… and he went into a far country, and there squandered his property in loose living (Luke 15:12–13).
Disobedience is the daughter of pride. Therefore the proud and disobedient person is left by God to fall into grievous sins, in order to be humbled and to return to repentance. The first sin into which the proud and disobedient fall is immorality — a heavy, ugly, shameful passion. But if the fallen person repents, if his conscience reproaches him and he wants to return, our heavenly Father does not abandon him; rather, He stretches out His hand, waits for him, goes out to meet him, kisses him with tears of joy, and forgives him. Thus did the heavenly Father act toward the prodigal son in the Gospel: He went out to meet him, kissed him, forgave his sins, gave him a ring and a robe, and feasted with him.
Do you see the goodness and mercy of God? Do you see the fruits of repentance of the one who returns to Christ? Do you see that all sinners have repentance and forgiveness? Do you see that the Lord is waiting for us also for repentance at the door of the church? Only let us be sorry for what we have done, confess with repentance, abandon our sins, and say like the prodigal son: “I will arise and go to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants” (Luke 15:18–19). If drunkards, the immoral, and Christians enslaved by sins in our days would say these words from the heart, God would receive them all, kiss them, and forgive them! Yet few of our Christians truly fear God, return again to church and to repentance, and run to the priests to confess their sins.
May the repentance of the prodigal son be an example, correction, and exhortation for us all; and may his disobedience and fall into immorality remind us of the great danger that threatens children struck by unbelief and immorality. We see how many fathers and mothers come weeping to churches and monasteries for their children. They all tell us the same thing: “Our children no longer listen to us; they go to all kinds of bad entertainments, to films with killings and films of immorality; they no longer want to study, to go to church and confession, they no longer want to pray to God, and they are nervous. They have made friends with bad children; they live in immorality with bad girls like themselves; they smoke and get drunk — what shall we do with them? How can we save them from immorality and bring them back to faith, to the Church, to a normal Christian life?”
Here is the great problem of our children. Here is today’s pain of many parents. Behold, prodigal sons — disobedient and immoral like the one in the Holy Gospel — have multiplied in the world and in our families. What can still be done for them, after they have fallen into all sins? What should we answer these parents who come to us weeping?
The answer is one: first, help our children not to fall into the grievous sins of unbelief, disobedience, and immorality. And if they have fallen like the prodigal son in the Gospel, help them to rise from the abyss of unbelief and immorality. How? First, take them to a good spiritual father to confess their sins. Then encourage them again toward the Church, toward a normal social life, and accustom them to pray and to read holy books. Only be careful that the parents themselves — father and mother — do not become those who scandalize their children and push them into all kinds of sins by the bad example they see at home.
We do, however, have many good, exemplary families in our villages and cities. We still have many devoted Christian mothers who raise their children beautifully. We have churches, monasteries, and good priests throughout the country. We only need to seek them out, confess regularly, and follow their counsel. Therefore, let no one despair.
Let us return to our heavenly Father who created us. God is waiting for us at the threshold of the churches. Let us come while we still have time, for He waits for us and calls us. And falling before Him, let us say with repentance and tears: “Behold, we have sinned against heaven and before You. We have strayed on the paths of sin. We have departed from You and from Your Church. We have fallen into grievous lawlessness. Now we repent, we are sorry, we fear the eternal condemnation that awaits us, for we are no longer worthy to be called Your sons. But receive us back as the least of Your servants!” Amen.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
