Homily of His Excellency Selim Sfeir
Maronite Archbishop of Cyprus
The Prodigal Son
Luke 15, 11-32
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
There is no return without departure, no repentance except after
disobedience, and no understanding of the meaning of love except after
distance.
We stand before one of the most beautiful passages in the Gospel, the
parable of the prodigal son, and in it important truths about the meanings
of fasting and its effect on the human soul are revealed to us, especially
in this blessed time.
This son was born and raised in the lush garden of his father, growing up
in his bosom, enjoying all that this nurturing environment could offer him
in terms of fruits and blessings, but he did not know the meaning of
paternal love, and had not tasted the return after the estrangement.
The idea of reigning over his own life appealed to him, so he decided to
venture into the twists and turns of life with its goods and ills. He took
what was his and left his father's garden for faraway lands, where he
dissipated his father's inheritance, moving from life in abundance to the
knowledge of life in its darkest aspects.
There, in the desert of the saddened world, he hungered, even suffered
from famine, and began to understand the splendor of life in his father's
house.
There he was compelled to work like a slave, lowering himself to the level
of the pigs wallowing in filth. He who was blessed by his father's overflow
from his table, craved the food of these unclean creatures. He lost his
clothes and shoes, thus losing his protection against the elements of life;
he sold his ring, losing his identity.
Then begins the journey back to the father's house, when he has exhausted
all the resources of his pride, returned to himself, to the image of God
deep within his being, from where he had departed when he left the
father's house.
As we read this parable, we see before us the image of man in the journey
of life. The image of each of us leaving the refuge of paternal security, to
become naked and defenceless, with sin eating away at our empty lives.
Throughout our lives, we seek to dominate our own lives, to draw on our
resources for life's pleasures, only to realize that God's bosom, in its
simplicity, is richer than anything the poor world can offer us.
Perhaps we see in this parable Adam, who lived and enjoyed God's
paternal bosom in the Garden of Eden, without understanding the meaning
of communion with God. He was seduced by the idea of becoming like
God, master of himself. He left the garden of paternal protection and
wandered into the desert of the world in search of the freedom he had lost.
Yes, we are the fallen sons of Adam, out of God's garden because of our
sin, living in disobedience in order to acquire the sense of return to
oneself.
Perhaps after this painful exit, we will come back to ourselves, to return
to the heavenly Father's house, perhaps we will realize because of our sins
the depth of God's grace, which is why Paul the apostle says: "where sin
abounded, grace overflowed." (Romans 5:20).
Perhaps during this fast we will learn to abandon the temptations of
material life, to strip ourselves of all the resources of our pride, to humble
ourselves before God and return to understand that the world offers us
only fleeting illusions.
Let our fast today be an exit, not from the protection of God, nor from the
garden of communion with Him, but an exit from the world of sin that has
attracted our desires and impulses, to make our fast an exit to ourselves,
towards the image of God in which we were created, and let our fast and
our austerity be a stripping of our selfishness so that we can look beyond
the self in us and enjoy the communion of love with others. Fasting that
strips us of the appearances of luxury exposes us to our true state, like the
prodigal son who only realized the distance after stripping himself. Let us
return to the Father's house as he did, and let our fasting teach us the value
of living in communion with God.
If the prodigal son's departure was a fast that stripped him of dreams of
sin and ended with the sacrifice of the fatted calf, then our fast, which
purifies our souls, ends with the great sacrifice on the Cross, the reason
for forgiveness of our sins and joy for the heart of God. The reason for
forgiveness, for "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness!"
(Hebrews 9:22), and the joy for the heart of God, for Isaiah says : “Yet it
pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When you make
His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall
prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand."
(Isaiah 53:10).
† Selim Sfeir
Maronite Archbishop of Cyprus