The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen

Henri Nouwen brings a personal and reflective approach to one of the New Testament’s most beloved passages. After spending months staring at and reflecting on Rembrandt’s painting of the Prodigal Son, Nouwen weaves a narrative that allows us to ‘walk in the shoes’ of the three main characters in the story. You will reflect on the parable in a different, more personal fashion in the future. Wearing the shoes of the prodigal son you will learn from his introspection: “In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of the gifts received, but now I
realize that gratitude can also be a gift of discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.” While in the shoes of the father, we better understand the love of all fathers who sometimes must wait years for their unconditional love to be returned. But that patience is the key to understanding the love of Our Father in heaven. Lastly, and in all honesty, the hardest lesson for me to learn, is not to find myself in the shoes of the older brother. How often do we want to remind Our Father how much we have done for Him, as if He is keeping a list. Nouwen’s journey of discovery, which took him back and forth to Russia, numerous times to view the painting, can become our own. The lessons of not only the prodigal son, but the lessons learned about the father and the older son help complete our search for our heavenly father. As Nouwen points out: “And, finally, the question is not ‘How am I to love God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be loved by God?’ God is looking in the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.”