Ex 327-11.13-14; Ps 50 (51); 1Tm 1:12-17; Lk 15: 1-32

To respond to the murmuring of scribes and Pharisees, who accused him of welcoming sinners and eating with them, Jesus “told them this parable”. Thus Luke writes. In fact, there are three parables: the parable of the lost sheep, that of the lost coin, and finally the widest parable of the father with his two sons. Actually, the three different stories constitute a single parable not only because they all insist on revealing God’s mercy, but because they show the different possible outcomes of the same attitude. The sheep is lost “outside” of the flock; the coin is lost “inside” the house; finally, in the two sons of the third parable we find the two attitudes: the younger son gets lost outside his father’s house; the oldere one inside, because, although he never abandoned his father, he remained in his house as a servant rather than as a son. The ways to get lost are many: far or near, outside or inside … what matters most is that the father goes out to meet both children to give them back the filial dignity they have not yet known how to live. And being children means abandoning the servile logic of reciprocity – “give me my share”, “I have done so much for you, you owe me so much” – to enter instead into the filial logic of gratuitousness: “Son, you are always with me and all that it’s mine is yours”.

Commentary by Comunità di Dumenza

Translation by f. Mark Hargreaves, Prinknash Abbey