False Spirituality - Week 6: Thursday

Luke 15:25-32

Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

Commentary

Fr. Tadros Malaty

The elder son was not expelled out, but he stood at the door, and did not wish to go in since he did not accept God’s will which called the Gentiles to the faith. In this way the son became a slave (John 10: 14) “Because the slave does not know the wish of his master”. And when he knew it, he became jealous, and was tortured due to the happiness of his brother, and he remained outside. Despite this, the loving father wanted to save him, for he told him ‘You are with me at all times!, I wish you would stop your envy because ‘All what I have is yours.’