THE PRODIGAL WORLD
Author: Fulton J. Sheen; 160p, PB.
Sheen's extraordinarily insightful, if unique, interpretation of the Parable of the Prodigal Son in this work, is historical rather than moral. The younger son in the parable is Western Civilization. After many long centuries in union with the Father's house, the Church, Western Civilization took its inheritance -- not inheritance in the form of gold and silver, but spiritual capital in the form of the eternal truths necessary for salvation. Carried away by its newfound independence from the Father's House, it began little by little to spend the patrimony that Christ committed to His Church: first its belief in the need for authority, then its belief in Scripture as the revealed word of God, followed by its belief in the Divinity of Christ, the necessity of grace and, finally, the existence of God as Lord and Supreme Judge. In our own day, it has spent its last penny living riotously. How it can come to its senses once again and find redemption is the subject of this book.
Sheen's extraordinarily insightful, if unique, interpretation of the Parable of the Prodigal Son in this work, is historical rather than moral. The younger son in the parable is Western Civilization. After many long centuries in union with the Father's house, the Church, Western Civilization took its inheritance -- not inheritance in the form of gold and silver, but spiritual capital in the form of the eternal truths necessary for salvation. Carried away by its newfound independence from the Father's House, it began little by little to spend the patrimony that Christ committed to His Church: first its belief in the need for authority, then its belief in Scripture as the revealed word of God, followed by its belief in the Divinity of Christ, the necessity of grace and, finally, the existence of God as Lord and Supreme Judge. In our own day, it has spent its last penny living riotously. How it can come to its senses once again and find redemption is the subject of this book.
