There is no ambiguity in the Maronite icon for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son.
The father of the parable is clearly shown as Our Lord Jesus Christ in his glory, and his house is the church. The words inscribed in Syriac are brō ōsuTō, “the gluttonous” or “wasteful son.”
The term comes from a root meaning “unsaved.”
Today, few people understand the meaning of the word prodigal, and in fact, it does not appear in the Gospel text.
But St Luke tells us that the one who had been dead is now alive, and the one who was lost has been found. In other words, he has come to salvation.
The Syriac expression ōsuTō is therefore inspired. It captures both the son’s wastefulness and, more importantly, the lesson of the parable—that through repentance, he found salvation.
So what can we say about the father of the brō ōsuTō, the unsaved son? I would say that he is the patient one.
When the son returned, the father saw him while he was still far off, because he was watching. This was not a coincidence or an accident.
It was not as if the father had stepped outside to pick some parsley and happened to see his son coming back at that exact moment.
No, the father went out every morning to catch the first light. He returned each evening with the last rays of the sun. At midday he stood in the heat, in case his son was struggling home.
Through it all, the father was growing in strength by practising patience. The patient one is the strong one. It is the person who loses their temper and lashes out who is weak.
He resisted the temptation to take action and to force the issue. He delivered no ultimatum. He offered no bribe. He waited at home for his son to decide to return of his own volition.
And eventually, the son did just that. The unsaved son was saved when he came to himself and returned home. And when he did return, he met not the gates or the doors, he met the patient father himself—the same father, who when he discovered the jealous reaction of his eldest son, came out to meet him, too.
The son had come to himself. In the Syriac tradition, to come to oneself is to come into the presence of God. The father then ordered the slaughter of the fatted calf, a symbol of Christ and the Eucharistic sacrifice.
The elder son, often understood as a symbol of the Jewish people, complained that he had not even been given a goat, which was a sacrifice of the Old Testament law. The father’s perfectly patient reply was that there was never any need for the son to exclude himself.
It is also worth noting that we are not told how the unsaved son spent his inheritance. We only hear the sordid details from the jealous elder brother. There is a lesson here too. The sin of detraction is a sin of envy.
And what about the fair-weather friends of the unsaved son? Did they ever think of him again, except perhaps to wish they could take more money from him?
And the man who gave him work feeding pigs, a clear sign that he had ended up among the Gentiles, did he care about the young man at all?
Most likely, he simply thought easy come, easy go. Then there were the father’s own servants when they told the elder brother that his younger brother had returned and that there would be a feast. I cannot imagine that they were not touched by the generosity and goodness of their master.
The truth is, each of us carries something of every character in this parable. We cannot be exactly like the father, for he is the Father. But we can strive to imitate his patience, his compassion, his mercy and his love.
Finally, there is an enigmatic passage in the Maronite psalm for this feast: the unsaved son is speaking, and he says that his own heart condemned him, but the father was greater than his heart. What does this mean?
Perhaps it can be understood in the light of St James 2:13, “Mercy triumphs over justice.” His heart told him that in justice he was not worthy to be the father’s son, but the father’s mercy and compassion were greater than that judgement.
This parable carries for us a great message of hope, for who among us has not forgotten their Father in heaven? And who among us does not yearn to return to him and be welcomed by him, and acknowledged as his own child? So the unsaved son found salvation. May it be so for us.