Lenten Meditation: The Prodigal Son
“All men are seeking for thee”
It hangs in the Hermitage in what was known then and is known now as St. Petersburg having been acquired by Catherine the Great in 1776, some one hundred and eight or nine years after Rembrandt painted what was probably his last painting before his death in 1669. It is called The Return of the Prodigal Son, perhaps one of the world’s greatest paintings, and the inspiration for Henri Nouwen’s thoughtful and reflective meditation on the Gospel parable that is the subject of the painting.
The parable is the well-known parable from the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel and is known as The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Rembrandt’s painting captures that intense and intimate moment of the son’s return to his father. It is the homecoming of the son. A powerful moment, it both conceals and reveals the larger story. In Luke’s Gospel, this parable is the third of three parables that are all about redemption, about being lost and then found: the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and the parable of the lost son, the prodigal son. If we were to imagine these parables as being depicted in art, they would form a triptych, such as are found on many altars in Europe; in short, three panels with the two side panels framing the central panel. That central panel, it seems to me, would have to be a depiction of the prodigal son. It is the most intense, the most dynamic and the most compelling of the three parables.
Henri Nouwen’s meditation helps us to appreciate the power of the parable. But it is the painting that has inspired his insight into the radical and universal message that the story presents. The homecoming of the Son to the Father is the very nature of the Christian pilgrimage, the journey of the soul to God, we might say. The wonder of the painting is the miracle of the parable. We have a God and Father to whom we may return. The painting captures the deep compassion of the Father for the wayward son. The truth of our humanity is ultimately to be found in the embrace of the Father’s love, no matter how far and wide we have strayed. Ultimately, we live in the total and unconditional love of the Father.