The Return of the Prodigal Son - Retold

An excellent short book by Henri Nouwen, based on his chance encounter with a reproduction of Rembrandt's painiting The Return of the Prodigal Son. Nouwen re-examines his own spiritual journey by re-telling Jesus' famous parable (Luke 15:11-32, Nouwen terms it "The Story of Two Sons and Their Father") by focusing not just on the wayward son, but also by looking deeply at the role and heart of the father, and the elder son.

The wikipedia entry(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Nouwen) sums up below the former Dutch priest's novel approach towards the story:

In Return of the Prodigal Son, for example, Nouwen describes love and forgiveness as unconditional. Though this is not a novel idea, Nouwen's approach is arguably unique as we approached this theme from the angles of the younger son, the elder son, and the father.

Each captures the unconditional quality of love and forgiveness in their own way. The younger son's life shows how the beloved lives a life of misery by thinking he can be loved only by meeting certain qualifications of the lover (which he fails to meet). The elder son's actions shows how the beloved can be depressed because he thinks he should receive greater love because he has done all the right things (i.e., that he has met these qualifications). The father alone understands how to love and forgive and is able to do so and be happy.

Nouwen explains that we are the younger son at times (when we think we don't deserve the love or the forgiveness) and the elder son at times (when we think we deserve love or that another doesn't deserve it more than us), but that we are all called to be like the father (and that only by being like the father can we come closer to being loved as we should be loved).

This book intimately relates each of us to our own relationships with God, our parents, our siblings, and ourselves and provokes many a meaningful reflection. A must read.