It is indeed true that while we are in moral disorder we tend to be blissfully unaware of our condition. The life we are leading seems quite adequate, our bodies are satisfactorily stimulated, and our relationships, shoddy as they may be, are all we require. It is only when the house we have built on the sand of transience is blown down by misfortune that we wake up rather abruptly and start to think about the course of our previous life. So it was with the Prodigal Son (Luke 15.11-32), who wasted all his resources in wanton living until everything was lost and he was in dire destitution. Only then did he come to himself, to the full use of his senses, and begin to survey the prospect with the calm detachment that often follows total disaster: having nothing further to lose, one can look into the present darkness with a freedom that is exhilarating in its stark nakedness.

Perhaps he then considered how he had wasted his time from the moment after he had taken his share of the family property and squandered on ephemeral delights the money it had realized. Had he remained in that frame of mind, his selfishness would have been as gross as it was during the period of his debauchery. He would simply have regretted his folly, vowing to be more careful with his money next time in his pursuit of satisfaction. But there was to be no next time: his destitution was too severe for that. Instead, he had to strive for mere survival; the past was over like a bad dream as he awoke to the terror of the present situation. And so he moved more deeply into his condition and saw the moral poverty in which he had lived for so long. He remembered his life at home, where his father's servants had had more food to eat than he now had.

What was the cure that brought the sins of the young man into fine focus? It was his realization that help could come alone from his father, though the present disposition of the parent was an unknown quantity: he could quite easily have thrown his scapegrace son out of the house. And so the parental lifeline brought with it a humility previously unknown to the son, as he saw his thoughtless actions in stark perspective. He could say quite frankly, "Father, I have sinned, against God and against you; I am no longer fit to be called your son." These were no mere words of placation, they were the utter truth; but the Prodigal Son could never have grasped them, let alone articulated them, had he not seen his rescue ahead of him. The ultimate cure was not effected merely by his father's rapturous reception: his joy would not so much as heed any apologies in its desire for an immediate celebration. There was still the elder brother to placate, the representative of sheer justice who would not be won over by his father's outflowing love.

The conflict between justice and love is decisive, for the one may not be sacrificed on the altar of expediency for the sake of the other. We may be sure that a bad feeling prevailed between the two brothers until the repentance of the younger was substantiated in an act of positive service and sacrifice that broke down the hard-heartedness of the elder. True love, in other words, does not circumvent the demands of justice; on the contrary, it fulfils them by an act of sacrifice that hurts the giver and inspires the one who receives. It would be only then that the hard, morally correct older son would recognize the hatred lurking beneath the imposing façade of virtuous rectitude, and perhaps begin to alter his own rather rigid lifestyle. Hard-heartedness and rigidity effectively prevent the inflow of love into the personality, while the person remains smugly satisfied with his own perfection, as in the other great parable of the publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18.9-14). Once again the house has to be rebuilt on solid rock

Give me the grace, Lord, to face my own shortcomings now, so that I may work whole-heartedly under your guidance for the renewal of my personality. Then I may live more fruitfully and serve more joyfully.