Page 7 - Revista Paisiana Nr 12 Februarie 2025

It was with much wisdom and spiritual peda- share of property and leave his native home, proving
gogy that the Church scheduled on the second Sunday that God respects man’s freedom to follow his own
of the Triodion period to read a very edifying Gospel way of life. Thus, man has the freedom to use all the
parable, which helps us understand how useful repen- energy of his life, his natural gifts or the gifts acquired
tance is for our spiritual ascent to Resurrection, as ele- from others as he wishes, and God respects this free-
vation from sin and as joy of our meeting with Christ, dom, even if He knows that man can use them contrary
the Lord, Who revealed us the merciful love of the to His divine will.
heavenly Father. Yet, besides the respect that God shows for
The Gospel text of the Sunday of the Prodigal man’s freedom, the Gospel text of this day also shows
Son has a special relation with the very Sacrament of us the drama or failure of man’s freedom as alienation
confessing and forgiveness of sins or the Sacrament from God.
of Confession,which is, in fact, the Sacrament of the When man’s freedom becomes irrational,
reconciliation of the human being with God. lustily and self-destructive, God’s wisdom calls
The steps of the spiritual elevation from sin, man to repentance
which the young prodigal followed, are the essential “The distant country” (Luke 15:13) the youn-
steps of repentance or of confession. The Gospel text ger son went to represents man’s alienation from God
of the second Sunday of the Triodion period teaches and from the state of healthy freedom. “The distant co-
us how to repent, and especially, how great the gift and untry” is the indefinite space of oblivion and alienation
joy of forgiveness is, how wonderful is to find the lost of man from God and of the individual life with no
one or see the resurrection of the one spiritually dead, spiritual landmarks, while the man who has reached
and how beautiful the state of the human soul is after this state thinks that the freedom to become lustily de-
receiving the forgiveness of the sins. fines his person as mature and autonomous.
God respects man’s freedom, even if rec- After he spent in decadence everything he had
klessly or lustily used received from his father, living a depraved life, namely
The parable told by Jesus Christ, our Lord, and enslaved by passionate pleasures of the body which
presented by Saint Luke the Evangelist reveals, at the reduce human’s life to the biological level of the sen-
same time, the power of the repentance of the sinful ses, the young prodigal son had to face a situation he
man, the merciful love of God-the-Father and the joy never expected: the biological or material hunger.
of the forgiveness of the repentant person, because the The Holy Gospel says that “a sever famine
father the Gospel speaks about represents the fatherly took place throughout that country” (Luke 15:15).Who
love of God, the Father of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and scheduled that “sever famine”? What was the use of
our Heavenly Father. famine in that “distant country”? The Gospel does not
The two sons represent two attitudes of man say that, but one can suppose that it was caused by a
towards God: one of fidelity and obedience to God, drought allowed by God, because, more often than not,
namely to fulfil His will and be a firm inhabitant of when the humans’ freedom is unwise and self-destruc-
His House, and another one, of alienation from God. tive, God’s wisdom tries to save the sinful and lustily
The elder son represents the loyal or faithful man, who man, by calling him to repentance. In other words,
tries all his life to accomplish the words or comman- when we do not abstain from material greed out of our
dments of God and stays close to the House of God own will we shall be forced to fast. In other words,
(the Church). God can use external material difficulties to cause an
The younger son represents the disorderly free- inner spiritual change of the lustily man, enslaved by
dom of the lustily man, as manifestation of his sinful material things.
life. The two sons of the Gospel may represent two ca- Thus, “the severe famine in the distant coun-
tegories of different people, as well as two soul con- try” often represents the trials allowed by God over
ditions that the same person may have in various times the humans, not as a punishment, but as a spiritual the-
of his life, namely the freedom to be firm in commu- rapy, so that man should understand that everything
nion with God and the freedom to alienate or move he materially owns is limited and temporary, including
away from God. the life he lives on the earth. One can reach the thres-
The Gospel reads that the younger son wanted hold of death when one greed of properties and plea-
to experience freedom as alienation both from his fat- sures is alienated from God, the Spring of life. In this
her and from his native home. We are surprised to see sense, man’s freedom is a freedom in relation with
that the father accepts his son’s request to receive his God’s freedom. Sometimes God allows – through His

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