Any real study of religion is a soul-shaking experience, because it challenges a man or woman to rise higher, to journey more deeply into the knowledge and love of God. But if the price to be paid seems high, it is worth it, for it brings one to a fuller, richer and more truly human way of living this wonderful life that God has given us all.

 THE YOUNGER SON – PART II

We have wandered away from the boy watching the pigs, but we have done so because we wanted to see the younger son is myself. His story is my story, because I have sometimes turned my back on God, my loving Father.

The first part of his story is mine. If I am honest I easily see that I am like him in my sins. But the second part of his story – his return to his father and his forgiveness – is my story also? To believe that is not so easy.

Does my Father forgive me? Will he take me back into His family and His friendship? To discover that I will have to study. I will have to pray to God for light, for I cannot too easily believe it. And the more I am aware of the evil of my sins, the more difficult it is for me to believe that God will forgive them.

THE DECISIVE MOMENT

In the young man's story, one moment was decisive. It was the moment that really saved him. It was when he found himself all alone in his wretched and miserable stage, and he honestly admitted it to himself.

Before that he was carried along by his plans, his pleasures, the business of finding a job. He never really stopped to think about the direction his life was taking.

But now as he sits there with the pigs hungry, cold, alone he slowly grasps the truth about himself. He sees what he really is. He sees what he is missing. It is his awful moment of truth. From his point of view, he can really see straight: the goodness and love of his father, his own stupidity and wickedness.

  He will go back and ask to be taken as a servant. He will honestly admit to his father “Father, I have sinned against heaven and: before you; I am not worthy now to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.”

  What a painful journey that must have been for the young man – along the same road he had traveled a year or so before! He knew what he had done; he knew what a fool he had been. What would he do?

  If I stop for a moment and think of something evil that I have done, I can then walk beside him and share his doubts, his fears and thoughts about what lies ahead.