Page 8 - Revista Paisiana Nr 12 Februarie 2025

heavenly providence or merciful care for the ultimate realised he was taking a wrong path, which was not
purpose of humans’ life on earth, namely attain salva- freedom but slavery, he said to himself: “I will set out
tion – temporary trials and suffering, only to remind and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I
human being that the source of his existence is beyond have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no
him, in God the Eternally Alive, Who created man to longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one
live in communion of eternal love with God-the-Crea- of your hired servants” (Luke 15:18-19). This sudden
tor. change of attitude of the sinner, of waking up the con-
When “severe famine” took place in that coun- science of his own sinfulness and recognition of the
try of freedom lived as alienation from or oblivion of unnatural state he was in, is the beginning of repen-
God, the prodigal young man has suddenly turned tance, namely the beginning of his regret that he lived
from a free rich man into a poor hungry servant. After a selfish lustily life, squandering property, spiritual
he had become a slave of the passions of the body, he gifts and physical good health, having reached total
became also a slave of the material poverty now. Wis- moral and material decay.
hing to save his biological life – because his spiritual When the prodigal son said “I will set out”, it
one was almost dead – the prodigal son “went and meant not only getting up from the ground and lea-
hired himself out to a citizen of that country” (Luke ving, but also spiritual setting out, a determination to
15:15), who hired him to feed the pigs. This job was go out of the state of decay in which he was. From that
something humiliating in the old Judaic culture, be- time on, the attitude of God-the-Father showed as
cause pigs were considered unclean animals. Moreo- being the merciful love that had been waiting for a
ver, the prodigal son who was a servant now was not long time the return of the alienated and prodigal son.
allowed to supply his stomach with the pods the pigs When a sinner goes towards God, God
ate. To the spiritual poverty the humiliating material comes to meet him
poverty was now added. In this sense, the Gospel reads: “But while he
It was only then that he remembered the good was still a long way off, his father saw him and was
life lived in his father’s house, where the servants had filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son,
food to spare, eating bread, while he could eat not even threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke
the pods used to feed the pigs. This is why, the young 15:20). The father of the prodigal son was not waiting
man poor and hungry “comes to his senses” (Luke for his son, who was repenting, to come home and
15:17). In other words, he begins to rise from the un- knock at the door, but ran to him, threw his arms
natural state of the alienation from God, to the natural around him and kissed him, as a sign of great appre-
one, of communion with God. ciation for his repentance.
Sin and death are accidents or consequences Therefore, when a sinner comes towards God
of the false freedom and takes the first steps of repentance, God “runs” to
The text of the Gospel of this day shows us, in meet him. The hands of God-the-Father, which He
fact, that sin and man’s alienation from God are not throws out to hug the one who repents, are the holy
natural, but unnatural conditions, even if sometimes works of the Church of Christ, namely the call to re-
humans become used to sin so much that sin is consi- pentance and forgiveness of sins. It is through these
dered as something natural or normal, and death as a holy works that the sinful men alienated from God and
natural phenomenon. from their fellow beings receive the salvation, if they
But, from a spiritual point of view, sin and sincerely repent from the bottom of their hearts.
death are not natural or normal according to God’s Then, the Holy Gospel tells us that after the
will, but “fallen nature”, accidents and consequences Father of the prodigal son received his repentance with
of man’s false freedom as alienation from God and fal- joy, he ordered his servants to bring out the first robe
ling out from the communion with Him (cf. Romans – the best one – and put it on him, and a ring in his fin-
6:13). Thus, the “coming to his senses” caused by ger and sandals in his feet.
“compulsory fasting” (famine) was the decisive The first or new robe of the fatherly forgive-
chance for saving the young man who had lost his ness symbolises the enlightenment or purification of
good nature. the soul from its previous dark states imprinted by
The state of crisis in his biological existence sins. This robe expresses the relationship between the
made the former reveller and squanderer young man Holy Sacrament of Baptism “of water and the Spirit”
change his thought and life, convert himself, namely (John 3:5) and the Holy Sacrament of Repentance,
to repent. Thus, after coming to his senses, when he also called “Baptism of the Tears”.
8 PAISIANA nr. 2 / februarie / 2025