Charles Dickens is reputed to have described the Parable of the Prodigal Son as the greatest story ever told. Whether he did or not, it is certainly one of the most powerful and memorable stories ever told and speaks deeply to the human condition.
The Prodigal Son leaves home and his father gives him his inheritance knowing he is very likely to waste it. The father knows his son may never come home but he still takes the risk of facilitating his desire to leave home by giving him the means to do so. The son could then never complain that his father had ever stood in his way.
In his telling of it, Jesus has the Prodigal Son fall to the low point of living and feeding with the pigs.
If Jesus was to tell the story today, the Prodigal Son might instead become a victim of drug addiction.
Very many parents have had to deal with their own prodigal sons and daughters and have despaired over what to do. Jonathan Corrie, whose death in a doorway near Leinster House brought the plight of the homeless into the headlines and to the attention of our political class, was provided down the years with two houses by his parents.
They clearly did a huge amount for him. Probably there were lots of differences and periods of estrangement - how couldn't there be? - but buying your son two houses knowing full well he might waste them on drugs is a heroic thing to do. Despite everything they did, they must always have feared their son might never come home and there might never be a happy reconciliation as in the parable told by Jesus.
A huge amount of the debate sparked by Mr Corrie's death has focused on the lack of beds for the homeless. But Mr Corrie was offered a bed in a hostel by the homelessness services several times and refused it.
Many homeless people don't like hostels because they fear they will be attacked and robbed, and when there are CCTV cameras installed to prevent this, then they have a feeling of being watched and they don't like this either. So they stay on the streets.
Source: David Quinn, Irish Independent, 12/12/14
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