Dives in Misericordia: “The Parable of the prodigal Son” (6, continued)

Chapter 6 of “Dives in Misericordia” (“Rich in Mercy”) is entitled “Particular Concentration on Human Dignity.” It continues as follows:

“6. . . . Going on, one can therefore say that the love for the son the love that springs from the very essence of fatherhood, in a way obliges the father to be concerned about his son’s dignity. This concern is the measure of his love, the love of which Saint Paul was to write: ‘Love is patient and kind . . . love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful . . . but rejoices in the right . . . hopes all things, endures all things’ and ‘love never ends.’⁶⁸ Mercy – as Christ has presented it in the parable of the prodigal son – has the interior form of the love that in the New Testament is called agape. This love is able to reach down to every prodigal son, to every human misery, and above all to every form of moral misery, to sin. When this happens, the person who is the object of mercy does not feel humiliated, but rather found again and ‘restored to value.’ The father first and foremost expresses to him his joy that he has been ‘found again’ and that he has ‘returned to life’. This joy indicates a good that has remained intact: even if he is a prodigal, a son does not cease to be truly his father’s son; it also indicates a good that has been found again, which in the case of the prodigal son was his return to the truth about himself.”

68. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

 

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Pope John Paul II: “Dives in Misericordia”