Luke 15:24 — Community Reflections

LUKE 15:24 — KING JAMES VERSION 0

“For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.”

For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate — was dead and is alive again; was lost and is found: the two parallel pairs communicate the magnitude of the restoration. The son who was lost to the family (dead) is returned (alive). The celebration begins immediately — not after a probationary period but at the moment of the return.

Church Fathers on Luke 15:24

The younger son had despised his father when first he departed, and had wasted his father’s money. But when in course of time he was broken down by hardship, having become a hired servant, and eating the same food with the swine, he returned, chastened, to his father’s house. Hence it is said, And when be came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, but I perish with hunger.
Gregory the Great · 6th century

He rightly returns to himself, because he departed from himself. For he who returns to God restores himself to himself, and he who departs from Christ rejects himself from himself.
Ambrose · 4th century

But he returned to himself, when from those things which without unprofitably entice and seduce, he brought back his mind to the inward recesses of his conscience.
Augustine · 4th century

Read all 38 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain

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