[NOTE TO READER: In paragraph 19, the word “Laetare” is pronounced: lay-TAR-ray.] Today’s parable is the longest in the Bible — and the most quoted. The parable of the Prodigal Son, as it is popularly known, has preoccupied and perplexed the thoughts and works of countless religious and secular scholars, writers, and even artists. Why?…

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life for the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him.” In the end, it seems it is about bread. Which is only right, since in the beginning it…

To a Christian attorney or judge, a legal reading of the parable in today’s Gospel reading might seem perfectly obvious: The father’s statement, “Son all I have is yours,” means that he made a contract when the prodigal left, and the contract was binding and final. From that point forward, the younger son would get…

In the beautiful fifteenth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel we hear Jesus telling parables about God. In imagery that is common to his day and yet somehow startling, Jesus tells three stories which show us that God is intensely interested in finding lost souls. Two of these occur immediately before the story which we have…

The Gospel we just heard is sometimes called the ” Story of the Prodigal Son” or the “Story of the Two Sons.” I prefer to call it the “Story of the Forgiving Father.” This story asks each of us an important question: Will you go in? Will you go in to the feast of forgiveness,…

The story of the Prodigal son is one of the best known of all the stories in the Gospels. It is easy to see why, since it connects immediately to each one of us in a way that is instantly self authenticating. Has any one of us not felt like the Prodigal? The common response…