The Prodigal Son Revisited: Exit and Return of Angels, Humans, and the Trinity

ISBN-13: 9781500718503 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 386 str.

MR Samuel J. Castellino

Opis

The Prodigal Son is a parable about a father and his two sons. The younger son, who made an exit and return to the family homestead, has just arrived home. The elder son, upon confronting his father about the celebration to follow, is told, it seems for the first time, that he is to inherit everything his father has. "Don't you know? Everything I have is yours," says the father to his son. The Prodigal Son Revisited is a mix of short stories and academic research. It is a cosmic view of the original story that proposes the elder son, younger son, and father can be seen as stand-ins for angels, humans, and the Trinity, and who, like the younger son in the Prodigal Son, go through their own exit and return and achieve their own inheritance as a consequence. What is their exit and return? What is their inheritance? What is the relationship among the three to make all this happen? That is the subject matter of the book. The book is anchored at the front end by the theology of Saint Gregory of Nyssa (d. 390), and at the back end by the theology of Dom Virgil Michel, O.S.B. (d. 1938). The book's core circles around Catholic moral theology and a modern understanding of the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist. Any writings not referenced by footnotes are the author's own speculations and musings on the subject material. The short stories are set-up pieces to the academic research and are also used as fictionalized accounts on how we can see the theology of Gregory of Nyssa and Virgil Michel in action in the modern world.