Chapter 5 of “Dives in Misericordia” (“Rich in Mercy”) is entitled “An Analogy.” It continues as follows:
“5. . . . In the teaching of Christ Himself, this image inherited from the Old Testament becomes at the same time simpler and more profound. This is perhaps most evident in the parable of the prodigal son.62 Although the word ‘mercy’ does not appear, it nevertheless expresses the essence of the divine mercy in a particularly clear way. This is due not so much to the terminology, as in the Old Testament books, as to the analogy that enables us to understand more fully the very mystery of mercy, as a profound drama played out between the father's love and the prodigality and sin of the son.
“That son, who receives from the father the portion of the inheritance that is due to him and leaves home to squander it in a far country ‘in loose living,’ in a certain sense is the man of every period, beginning with the one who was the first to lose the inheritance of grace and original justice. The analogy at this point is very wide-ranging. The parable indirectly touches upon every breach of the covenant of love, every loss of grace, every sin. In this analogy there is less emphasis than in the prophetic tradition on the unfaithfulness of the whole people of Israel, although the analogy of the prodigal son may extend to this also. ‘When he had spent everything,’ the son ‘began to be in need,’ especially as ‘a great famine arose in that country’ to which he had gone after leaving his father’s house. And in this situation ‘he would gladly have fed on’ anything, even ‘the pods that the swine ate,’ the swine that he herded for ‘one of the citizens of that country.’ But even this was refused him.”
62. Cf. Luke 15:14-32.
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