All that God looks for from us is the slightest opening and he
forgives a multitude of sins. Let me tell you a parable that will
confirm this.
There were two brothers: they divided their father’s goods
between them and one stayed home, while the other went away to a
foreign country, wasted all he had been given, and then could not
bear the shame of his poverty.
Now the reason I have told you this parable is so that you will
understand that even sins committed after baptism can be forgiven if
we face up to them. I do not say this to encourage indolence but to
save you from despair, which harms us worse than indolence.
The son who went away represents those who fall after baptism. This
is clear from the fact that he is called a son, since no one is
called a son unless he is baptized. Also, he lived in his
father’s house and took a share of all his father’s
goods.
Before baptism no one receives the Father’s goods or enters upon the inheritance. We can therefore take all this as signifying the state of believers. Furthermore, the wastrel was the brother of the good man, and no one is a brother unless he has been born again through the Spirit.
What does he say after falling into the depths of evil? “I will return to my father.”
The reason the father let him go and did not prevent his departure
for a foreign land was so that he might learn well by experience
what good things are enjoyed by the one who stays at home.
For when words would not convince us, God often leaves us to learn
from the things that happen to us.
When the profligate returned after going to a foreign country and
finding out by experience what a great sin it is to leave the
father’s house, the father did not remember past injuries but
welcomed him with open arms.
Why? Because he was a father and not a judge. And there were dances
and festivities and banquets and the whole house was full of joy and
gladness.
Are you asking: “Is this what he gets for his
wickedness?”
Not for his wickedness, but for his return home; not for sin, but
for repentance; not for evil, but for being converted.
What is more, when the elder son was angry at this the father gently
won him over, saying: “You were always with me, but he was
lost and has been found; he was dead and has come back to
life.”
“When someone who was lost has to be
saved,” says the father, “it is not the time for passing
judgment or making minute inquiries, but only for mercy and
forgiveness.”
On Repentance, Homily 1, 3-4: PG 49, 282-283
John Chrysostom (c.347-407) was born at Antioch
and studied under Diodore of Tarsus, the leader of the Antiochene
school of theology. After a period of great austerity as a hermit,
he returned to Antioch where he was ordained deacon in 381 and
priest in 386. From 386 to 397 it was his duty to preach in the
principal church of the city, and his best homilies, which earned
him the title “Chrysostomos” or “the
golden-mouthed,” were preached at this time. In 397
Chrysostom became patriarch of Constantinople, where his efforts
to reform the court, clergy, and people led to his exile in 404
and finally to his death from the hardships imposed on him.
Chrysostom stressed the divinity of Christ against the Arians and
his full humanity against the Apollinarians, but he had no
speculative bent. He was above all a pastor of souls, and was one
of the most attractive personalities of the early Church.
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Journey with the Fathers
Commentaries on the Sunday Gospels
- Year C, pp. 36-37.
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