NOTICE that the divine patrimony is given to those
that ask it. Neither think the father to blame in giving it to his younger son.
For there is no weakness of age in the kingdom of God, nor does faith decline
with years. And he who asked considered himself worthy to receive. Would that
he had never gone away from his father, then had he never known the drawback of
his age. Then leaving his father's house, he took his journey into a far
country, and began to be in want. It is well said that he wasted his patrimony,
he who withdrew from the Church.
HE took his journey into a far country. How much
further can one go, than from oneself: to be separated, not by territories, but
by behavior: to be cut off, not by frontiers, but by desires; and, as though
consumed with the heat of riotous living, to be severed from the company of the
Saints? Truly he who separates himself from Christ is an exile from his
fatherland, for he is a citizen of the world. But we are no more strangers and
foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.
For we who were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. Let us not be
angry with those who are returning from a far country; for we too have been in
a far country, as Isaiah teaches, as it is written, They that dwell in the land
of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Therefore, the far
country is the shadow of death.
BUT as for us, unto whom Christ is the Lord and
breath of life, we live under the shadow of Christ. Therefore, does the Church
say, I sat down under his shadow with great delight. Yet that man wasted all
his natural gifts by his riotous living. But thou that hast received the image
of God, who hast been given his likeness, waste it not in living like an
animal. Thou art God's handiwork: Say not to a stock: Thou art my father, lest
thou become like a stock, as it is written, They that make them are like unto
them.
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