Return of the Prodigal Son

 

Return of the Prodigal SonA Better Homeland

(cf. Hebrews 11:16)

When prodigal children book passage for a far country, the last thing they want is a reminder about the likeliness of a U-turn. No ticket kiosk offering roundtrip fare will likely greet them at the border, and that is just as well. When worldly expectations are great and hopes high, the runaway can’t get into the mix of the world fast enough.

Often unnoticed, if not ignored, is the long procession of disillusioned and broken people on the return journey. Ironically, the world is often the cause of its own depopulation. Yet in the providence of Him who numbers the hairs on our head, there is no irony. The bitterness that inevitably follows worldly indulgence is a symptom of the deeper sickness that Jesus came to heal. The deceptive goods themselves that people run after can serve as God’s unsuspected means of returning them to Himself.

The lost are found in this way, Newman explains, “by finding disappointment and suffering from that which they had hoped would bring them good.”[1]

[T]hey learn to love God and prize heaven, not by baptismal grace, but by trial of the world; they seek the world, and they are driven by the world back again to God. The world is blessed to them, in God’s good providence, as an instrument of His grace transmuted from evil to good, as if a second sacrament, doing over again what was done in infancy, and then undone.

It might take something like the riches-to-rags experience of the prodigal son to bring some straying souls back to God. That the famous wanderer of the parable only came to his senses standing over a pigsty, coveting the slop the swine fed on, proves that whatever means God can use to reach our heart is fair game—whether the stench of garbage or the fragrance of a rose garden, all is mercy. Beauty or ugliness, joy or sorrow, can serve as the lever that detaches the heart from harmful ways and leads it back into the ways of salvation. Who hasn’t experienced this?

A soul’s turning point need not involve the obvious drama of the parable. If we assume that every unconverted person is feverish or grasping in his pursuit of worldly happiness, we take the extreme for the norm, and bypass more modest self-application. In reality, to be worldly is simply to believe that the (admittedly) unreliable happiness this world offers is the only happiness worth pursuing, and to act practically and regularly on that belief. No attempt at transcendence is seriously embarked on. Happiness comes from the world and remains in it without ever getting beyond it.

This creates a deeper problem in us that Newman identifies as an incurable loneliness. More than separating someone from their hometown, or even homeland, the world’s unfulfilled and unfulfillable promises of happiness end up separating a man not only from God but also from the world itself. The world is self-alienating.

For a season, buying into the world’s promises of happiness seems the best use of time, money, effort, and love. But eventually the repetition of pleasures and amusements emerges for what it always was: a surface distraction against inner loneliness, aggravated by the very diversions themselves.

Poet Matthew Arnold, a contemporary and admirer of Newman, wistfully noted this discrepancy in his famous poem “Dover Beach.” The world, seeming to provide for every need, cannot give what matters most:

…for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain…

 

Although Arnold’s poem leaves largely unidentified where these good things may be found, Newman’s sermon, “The Church, a Home for the Lonely,” points the way to a wholly unique, God-given “shelter, refuge, rest, home or sanctuary from the outward world,” locating our safe haven in

the Church of God, which is our true home of God’s providing, His own heavenly court, where He dwells with Saints and Angels, into which He introduces us by a new birth, and in which we forget the outward world and its many troubles.

Religious or not, world-weariness besets everyone born into the world. People naturally look around for solutions, or remedies, even if they remain stop-gap measures. Where people end up remains uncertain, yet land somewhere they must, because even though “they will not accept God’s remedy, yet they confess that a remedy is needed, and have recourse to what they think will prove such.”

Enter the gospel. God walks the earth in Christ, entering the lives of people surviving but deteriorating, in need of living water, living bread, the fresh air of the Spirit.

Here then Christ finds us, weary of that world in which we are obliged to live and act, whether as willing or unwilling slaves to it. He finds us needing and seeking a home, and making one, as we best may, by means of the creature, since it is all we can do.

Time and again Jesus seeks out those who have hit bottom or who are outwardly well off, but misguided. From the Samaritan woman to the rich young man, the Lord encounters people trying to make their home in this world as best they can but who need to be saved, not only from the world, but more importantly from themselves.

The gospels show Jesus treating people in just this way—as needing to be called, found, caught, brought back, and protected. He compares disciples to netted fish, birds protected in the branches of a large, shady tree, and to the sheep of a guarded fold. He couldn’t be clearer: Fallen people are prone to stray and need to be guided, protected, even rescued often—and then brought home.

One way or another, to belong to Christ is to live in a sheepfold, a net; it is to rest in the shade of a great tree; it is to be found and rejoiced over. In all cases, to be saved is to belong to Christ as His treasured possession and to live in union with others likewise caught, called in, guarded, found and brought back. And this is the Church of God.

If the prodigal son may be taken as the paradigm for all conversions, Newman sees the world itself as the unwitting cause of numerous returns from the distant country of dissipation. It ends up repelling those most prepared to embrace its values and standards. But the itinerary of famous gospel wanderers—a straying sheep, the prodigal son, the Samaritan woman—should not be misunderstood. Separation from the Lord is measured not primarily by traveling distance, but by an isolation of the heart.

And for this loneliness to set in, all that is needed is for love, hope, and faith to be misplaced. To force the world to be our lasting home, our land of dreams, and to pigeonhole ourselves as its tenants, is to misread entirely the message written into creation. The world is neither a paradise nor a prison, but the venue of our training in love and freedom. The disappointments encountered should make us recalculate our prospects for earthly happiness in a salutary way. They can set the heart free from dependence on the world, attachment to its attractions, so that we can enter into the company and communion of God and His saints.

These are inspiring thoughts for the solitary, the dejected, the harassed, the defamed, or the despised Christian; and they belong to him, if by act and deed he unites in that Communion which he professes. He joins the Church of God, not merely who speaks about it, or who defends it, or who contemplates it, but who loves it.[2]

And it is perhaps most especially in the absence of this love, or when confronted with its counterfeit, that the heart is stirred to desire its authentic and lasting expression in the Church of God, love’s genuine home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] “The Church, a Home for the Lonely.” Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. IV, Sermon 12. All quotations, unless otherwise noted, come from this sermon.

[2] “The Communion of Saints,” Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. IV, Sermon 11.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like this article?

Leave a comment



[]
1 Step 1
Name of the Petitioneryour full name
Name (of the person in need)your full name
Short Description of the Need, for ex. heart disease, spiritual conversion, finding employmentPrayer Intntion
0 / 300
Previous
Next

Aim at ‘seeing the King in His beauty’.  All things that we see are but shadows to us and delusions, unless we enter into what they really mean.

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you.”

The Psalms, the "voice of the Church," invite us to enter into the sufferings of Christ and His people, and cling to God above all.

Applying Newman's theory, it seems clear that the notion that women's ordination to to the priesthood, would not maintain the type of the early Church.

In 1990, the International Theological Commission, issued a document titled "The Interpretation of Dogma" in which Newman's seven notes are endorsed.

The path forward for us personally and for the Church at large, requires returning to the core truths that Christ Himself has revealed to us.

We are made to be gifts to God and gifts to each other, body and soul; to go against God’s law, which is for our good, is to refuse the gift.

What does John Henry Newman mean by the words: "to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often?"

Our Books

About Cardinal John Henry Newman

Purchase Book


A Guide to John Henry Newman will interest educated readers and professors alike, and serve as a text for college seminars for the purpose of studying Newman.

Review by Catherine Maybanks
(Catholic Herald, April 1, 2023)

Review by Serenheed James
(Antiphon, April 2023)

Purchase Book

 
Fr Peter Conley takes us on an exciting journey into the spirituality and inner life of Saint John Henry Newman.
 

Purchase Book


Endorsement by Neyra Blanco (Amazon)
I bought this book for my son and he loved it, he wrote this review and urged my to submitted: “I think this book has a very beautiful message, because it shows how the young Newman was so determined to achieve his dream of becoming a priest, but even after his dream he continued to work in the church with passion until the day he died, it’s so admirable that even Newman so old and so weak still had that urge to continued his work of being a priest. And the book is well written with words not too complicated with very enjoyable texts and well illustrated pictures. I highly recommend this book for a 5th grader.  

Purchase Book


What is a Classical Liberal Arts Education? Why is it so important for the development of a person?

Fr. Juan R. Vélez answers these and more questions you might have about University Education in the 21st century. This book is aimed for parents, prospective University students, and educators. It will help you discern why adding Liberal Arts electives to your education will help it form it better, and help the student learn to reason, and not just learn.

He also explains how many Universities have changed the true meaning of Liberal Arts, and the subjects, and gives advise on how to choose College Campus, Subjects, and Teachers.

A wonderful book that every parent should also read way before your children are College bound. A Liberal Arts education can start earlier in life, even from home.

Purchase Book


Endorsement by Christopher Moellering (Goodreads, September 14, 2019)
In Passion for Truth Fr. Vélez gave us an outstanding biography of Cardinal Newman. In this work, he provides a concise overview of his thought and his devotion. This is a great work for someone who, perhaps hearing of Newman for the first time because of his beatification 13 October, 2019, wants to know more about this English saint.Vélez is a wonderful writer in his own right, and the frequent quotations from Newman round out the work nicely. I especially appreciated the frequent citing of Newman’s Meditations and Devotions, which show a different side of his spirituality than his more well-known works, Development of Christian Doctrine and the Grammar of Assent.

Purchase Book


Take Five: Meditations with John Henry Newman, endorsement by Illow M. Roque (Amazon, September 3, 2010)
“There is a time to put direct inquiry on hold and give ourselves to prayer and practical duties.” Sound advice from one of the earlier, thought-provoking reminders in this sparkling gem of a book: Take Five | Meditations with John Henry Newman, written by Mike Aquilina and Fr. Juan R. Vélez and published by Our Sunday Visitor. This particular paragraph, referenced above, which begins with a direct quote from soon-to-be canonized priest, cardinal and poet, John Henry Newman: “Study is good, but it gets us only so far . . .” is actually the 15th in a series of 76 concise, logically organized meditations moving from the elementary to the sublime. Each meditation–one per page–is built upon the great man’s writings and remarkably rich spirituality. Whether taken whole in one reading or in part page-by-page over a course of weeks and months, these wonderfully insightful meditations will open up, even to the busiest reader in the midst of the world, a unique pathway into prayer and contemplation. My advice to spiritual inquirers at all levels, from the novice to the spiritually adept, is to follow the authors’ recommendation to use this book as a guide for daily prayer and meditation. The structure of the book itself is ideal: first, the authors introduce us to Cardinal Newman, the man, where we are given the opportunity to get to know him through a brief sketch of his life and spirituality at the beginning of the book. This is something readers will likely find themselves referring to again and again, prompting many, I suspect, to even wider explorations of this most gifted Christian leader. Then comes the meditations, consisting of a short summary of Newman’s thoughts on subjects taken, as the authors explain, from various salient points for which Newman is justly remembered: The pursuit of objective religious truth; Teaching on the Virtues; Defense of the Catholic Church; A devout spiritual and moral life; and Generosity and loyalty in his friendships, which sets the topic and tone for each meditation to follow. Each meditation consists of an excerpt taken from Newman’s thirty-plus volumes of writings and diaries. Next comes three brief and extremely useful sections entitled: “Think About It,” which establishes a prayerfully resonant tone throughout the book; “Just Imagine,” which provides a vivid, prayerful experience of the Scriptures that tie in, and finally, “Remember,” a pithy summation which the authors suggest may be used as a daily aspiration. Each meditation is given its own page, which makes it ideal for daily reflection for readers on the go. This book is a must have for every serious Catholic who wants to take their faith to the next level, which is to respond appropriately to the universal call to holiness and seek interior union with God.
Fr. Peter Conley

Aim at ‘seeing the King in His beauty’.  All things that we see are but shadows to us and delusions, unless we enter into what they really mean.

David Warren

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you.”

Robert Kirkendall

The Psalms, the "voice of the Church," invite us to enter into the sufferings of Christ and His people, and cling to God above all.

Fr. Juan Velez

Applying Newman's theory, it seems clear that the notion that women's ordination to to the priesthood, would not maintain the type of the early Church.

Fr. Juan Velez

In 1990, the International Theological Commission, issued a document titled "The Interpretation of Dogma" in which Newman's seven notes are endorsed.

David Warren

The path forward for us personally and for the Church at large, requires returning to the core truths that Christ Himself has revealed to us.

Robert Kirkendall

We are made to be gifts to God and gifts to each other, body and soul; to go against God’s law, which is for our good, is to refuse the gift.

Fr. Juan Velez

What does John Henry Newman mean by the words: "to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often?"

Fr. Juan Velez

Listening to God is done keeping in mind the normative value of the whole of Tradition and of the Church’s Teaching.