The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming

by Henri J.M. Nouwen

All of these mental games reveal to me the fragility of my faith that I am the Beloved One on whom God’s favor rests.

At issue here is the question: “To whom do I belong? To God or to the world?”

One of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to receive God’s forgiveness. There is something in us humans that keeps us clinging to our sins and prevents us from letting God erase our past and offer us a completely new beginning.

Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing.

“Unless you turn and become like little children you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Jesus does not ask me to remain a child but to become one. Becoming a child is living toward a second innocence: not the innocence of the newborn infant, but the innocence that is reached through conscious choices.