An Open-ended Parable

A Lenten Moment

God is on the side even of the unworthy poor, as we know from the story Jesus told of his Father and the prodigal son. Charles Peguy, in God Speaks, has explained it. Readers may object that the prodigal son returned penitent to his father's house. But who knows, he might have gone out and squandered money on the next Saturday night; he might have refused to help with the farm work and asked to be sent to finish his education instead, thereby further incurring his brothers righteous wrath, and the war between the worker and the intellectual, or the conservative and the radical, would be on. Jesus has another answer to that one: to forgive one's brother seventy times seven. There are always answers, although they are not always calculated to soothe.

- Dorothy Day