A Parable of Mercy
an excerpt from Divine Mercy: A Guide from Genesis to Benedict XVI

by Robert Stackpole, S.T.D.

Click here to read Lay Witness’s interview with Robert Stackpole.

These words of Christ spoken to St. Faustina echo a truth revealed throughout all of Sacred Scripture—God’s unending love and mercy for the repentant. Christ Jesus endeavored to express in human terms the depths of Divine Mercy through the parables of the Gospels, including the parable of the lost sheep, the missing coin, and of course the most well-known, the parable of the prodigal son.

Pope John Paul II sought during his many years on the seat of Peter to have this message of Divine Mercy proclaimed to all peoples, penetrating every human soul with its truth. In his encyclical Dives in Misericordia (“Rich in Mercy”), he focuses explicitly on the parable of the prodigal son as portraying for us how Divine Mercy overcomes human sin (no. 5).

In the parable, the son begins by asking for his inheritance early. Basically, he says to his father: “I really wish you were dead so that I could have my inheritance; just give me my inheritance now, and I will go off with it and forget all about you—just as if you were dead!”

The father (no doubt sadly) acquiesces and gives his son the inheritance. Then the son goes off and wastes his father’s (doubtless hard-earned) gift of money on immoral living. The result is that the son ends up losing most of his human dignity, for the parable says that he finds himself ultimately in a condition lower than the pigs he takes care of just to survive.

Then, verse 17 says, “But when he came to himself”—that is, when he saw something of the truth about himself—he saw into the depths of his “squandered sonship.” Pope John Paul II writes:

He seems not to be conscious of it even now, when he says to himself: ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough to spare, but I perish here with hunger.’ He measures himself by the standards of the goods that he has lost, that he no longer ‘possesses,’ while the hired servants of his father’s house ‘possess’ them. These words express above all his attitude to material goods; nevertheless, under the surface is concealed the tragedy of lost dignity, the awareness of squandered sonship. (no.5)

Up until this point in the parable, the prodigal son’s repentance does not appear to be very genuine. There is a strong element of self-seeking calculation—what Catholicism has traditionally called “imperfect contrition”—in his words, “treat me as one of your hired servants,” a speech obviously designed just to get him a few decent meals!

Nevertheless, he also seems to have gained some kind of appreciation for the offense that he has done to his father, and in addition, an awareness of the fact that he has squandered something precious—his relationship of sonship to his father—because the speech he rehearses begins with the words, “Father . . . I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” Deep down, he knows that by his actions he has thrown away more than good food: He has thrown away a treasured relationship, and he knows as well what that sin justly deserves.

Then Jesus says: “But when he was still far off”—that is, when the prodigal son’s repentance was still half-hearted and imperfect—“his father saw him.” The father must have been gazing down the road constantly, hoping and praying to see his son return one day (which is why he caught sight of him when he was still “far off”); the father had compassion on him (splagchna eleous—compassion from the “guts”), and ran and embraced and kissed him (literally in the Greek text: “showered him with kisses”).

That was no way for a Middle Eastern father to behave! By rights, he should have made the son who had offended him at least grovel in the dust before forgiving him. But that would not be in accord with this father’s merciful heart. In fact, by running out to embrace him with tenderness, the father obviously moves to the depths the heart of his son, enabling and assisting his son to make his contrition more perfect. This is clear from the fact that when the son recites his prepared speech—“Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son”—he leaves out the last line: “Treat me as one of your hired servants!”

There is no longer any selfish calculation involved: In the light of his father’s boundless, tender love for him, he just acknowledges his grievous sin, and pleads to his father for a full restoration of their broken relationship. Moreover, there is no longer any doubt in his mind about his father’s merciful love. He “throws himself on the mercy of the court,” so to speak, trusting now that this court—his father’s merciful heart—is full of compassion and love.

What we see in the story of the Prodigal Son, therefore, is a father who reflects both aspects of Divine Mercy:

1. His faithfulness to himself, to his commitments as a father to care for his children, and

2. His passionate pity for his lost son’s plight.

Pope John Paul II concludes in his encyclical Dives in Misericordia that what we see happen to the prodigal son in this parable is a grace-assisted repentance that restores his true dignity as a son of his father:

Mercy—as Christ has presented it in the parable of the prodigal son—has the interior form of the love that in the New Testament is called agape. This love is able to reach down to every prodigal son, to every human misery, and above all to every form of moral misery, to sin. When this happens, the person who is the object of mercy does not feel humiliated, but rather found again and “restored to value.” The father first and foremost expresses to him his joy that he has been “found again “ and that he has “returned to life.” This joy indicates a good that has remained intact: Even if he is a prodigal, a son does not cease to be truly his father’s son. It also indicates a good that has been found again, which in the case of the prodigal son was his return to the truth about himself. (no.6)

Robert Stackpole, S.T.D., is professor of theology at Redeemer Pacific College and director of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy. He is the author of numerous journal articles on Divine Mercy, as well as the book Jesus, Mercy Incarnate, and editor of Pillars of Fire in My Soul: The Spirituality of St. Faustina.

Stackpole lives in Canada with his wife, Katherine, and their daughter Christina.

To learn more about the Divine Mercy message from the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, visit www.thedivinemercy.org. To order Divine Mercy: A Guide from Genesis to Benedict XVI, visit www.marian.org/giftshop.

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