Prodigal Sons

"And when he came to his senses, he said: How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!" (Luke, 15:17)

Upon visualizing the figure of the prodigal son, all the people idealized him to be a man of wealth, dissipating material possibilities in feasts of the world.

But the vision should be enlarged comprising all the different mannerisms.

The prodigal sons do not solely breathe where wealth is found in abundance. They are found in all the areas of human activities, slipping in diverse forms.

Some great scientists on Earth are reckless with their intelligence dispersing intellectually poisonous thoughts, unworthy of the privilege they were endowed. Marvelous artists, sometimes waste their imagination and sensibility uselessly through insidious miserly ventures, finally falling into idle pursuit of relaxation and of crime.

All over we see these dissipaters of wealth, knowledge, time, health and opportunities...

It is them who upon contemplating those with simple humble hearts, marching toward God, possessed of true faith, go through the great anxiety of uselessness, and afar from the intimate peace, hopelessly exclaim:

"How many simple laborers possess the bread of tranquility, while the hunger for peace tortures my spirit!"

The world remains replete with prodigal sons and hourly, thousands of voices repeat these same painful exclamations.

XAVIER, Francisco Cândido. Our Daily Bread. By the Spirit Emmanuel. Spititist Alliance for Books, 2003. Chapter 24.