Son, Give Me Thine Heart - Homily for the Sunday of the Prodigal Son (2025)

The parable of the Prodigal Son is the most touching and poignant image of the Christian life of repentance. That is why the Fathers chose this parable to frame the service of monastic tonsure. Because monastic life is the Christian life of repentance in its fulness and perfection. For those of us whom God has vouchsafed the mystery of monastic tonsure, it is impossible to hear the troparion for this day without a feeling of deep compunction. Every year we are given this reminder of that one night that will define our lives for all eternity, when we solemnly vowed to give our whole life to Christ. For us, then, it is an occasion each year to reflect on how we are living out those vows and to renew our commitment to them. It is an opportunity to recall the abundant grace that was poured out upon us as we made our profession, and to stir it up within us anew if we have neglected it, or to add fire to fire if it remains kindled within us.

The garments we wear each day, both in and out of church, are the tokens of sonship in which our merciful Father clothed us, when we left behind the vain and empty life of the world and came before the holy altar prostrate in repentance. Upon that holy altar, almost every day, we find the fatted calf, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8), the precious and holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Everything has been prepared for us, everything has been given to us. Now, we are all children of one Father, partaking of one spiritual table, dwelling continually in our Father’s house.

But as the parable demonstrates, it is possible to live as a son in the Father’s house without receiving any of the benefits of sonship. Just like the elder son of the parable, we can live an outwardly normal monastic life and yet remain inwardly alienated from our heavenly Father. If we look with envy at the progress or success of our brothers, or if we look with longing at the lives of those in the world, then we are sons in name only. If we grumble about why the Abbot favors this or that brother over us, while he neglects our own gifts and talents, we are sons in name only. If we insist on having our own way, or complain about the decisions of our superiors, then we are sons in name only. When we say or do things we know would displease our spiritual father, when we knowingly disobey their counsel then we are sons in name only. No matter how much else we might do that is good, no matter how much we labor in prayer and fasting, no matter how well we perform our various duties, no matter how much we give of ourselves in various ways, it will all be for naught if we fail to give the most important and essential thing—our heart. We all came here in response to the call of the Father, My son, give me thine heart (Prov. 23:26). “Give Me thine heart. Not your talents. Not your skills. Not your good deeds. Not your empty words. Give me thine heart. Until you do, you will never know yourself to be My son.”

We embark on the monastic life to these words: “Make haste to open unto me Thy Fatherly embrace, for as the prodigal I have wasted all my life. In the never-failing wealth of Thy mercy, O Saviour, reject not my heart in its poverty…” When we reach the altar, the Abbot assures us, “The merciful God as a loving Father seeth thy humility and true repentance, Child, and receiveth thee as the Prodigal Son repenting and falling down before Him with thy whole heart.” It’s clear from these texts that we come before God to offer Him first and foremost our heart, our “whole heart.” If we would experience the tenderness of His Fatherly embrace, then we must approach Him with all our heart. This is the covenant we have made with Him, these are the marriage vows, this is the promise He has given to us: “I will give all of Myself to you, if only you will give all of yourself to Me.”

But like the elder son, we often hold back and hold on—to our old habits, our old desires, our old ways of thinking, all of the sins and passions that are so familiar and comforting to us, even though they make us miserable in the end. We say to God, “I’ll give everything… eventually.” Or, “I’ll give everything, anything really… except this one feeling, this one interest, this one relationship, this one ‘harmless’ pleasure that is so dear to me, this one thing I could never live without, this one thing that makes me who I am. Surely, Lord, that’s enough. Surely, this one exception won’t offend You. Surely, You will still pour out Your grace upon me since You love me so much.”

God indeed loves us, and so when we fail to hold up our end of the deal, He comes looking for us. David says in the Psalms, Thy mercy, O Lord, shall pursue me all the days of my life (Ps. 22:6 LXX). In Greek, the word “pursue” is the same as the word often translated elsewhere as “persecute,” (katadiôkô). When we find ourselves in various trials, temptations, and difficulties as monastics, this is nothing other than God’s mercy “pursuing” us, seeking after us, telling us, “I want all of you; not most of you, not part of you, not almost all, but all of you.” If there is even one small corner of our heart that we reserve for ourselves, if there is one small portion of which we say, “Mine, not Thine,” then God will seek it out precisely because He loves us. If we are stubborn and resist, then we may begin to feel as though our monastic life is oppressive and overly restrictive, as though God really is out to make us miserable, as though He relishes our suffering, even though the cause of all our misery is our unrepentant self-will. We may come to the point of cursing our lot in life and lamenting the good fortune or happiness of others. But when we bring our complaints before God, He says to us gently as to the elder son, “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine (Lk. 15:31). I have already given you the best of everything. What more do you want?”

How do we relinquish our selfishness and give our heart unreservedly to God? We start by always making thorough confession to our spiritual father every week, without self-pity but rather with ruthless honesty. The devil does all he can to keep us from this. He instills the thought that our confessor will think poorly of us if we’re too forthcoming, that he won’t really understand us and our weaknesses, that he will judge us, condemn us, scold us, or punish us if we’re too honest. The devil makes us think of our heavenly Father the same way, as a stern disciplinarian whose perfect justice will invariably exact the proper penalties for our misbehavior. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (Lk. 15:7). What confessor is not moved to pity when he witnesses someone sincerely repenting before him, confessing his most shameful thought and deeds with contrition and self-condemnation? As for God Himself, like the father in the parable, He rushes out to give His grace to every humble penitent. The thing is, we can only confess like this if we truly mean to say, “Lord, I give up this sin. I honestly intend never to succumb to it again. I surrender to Your grace and Your mercy that keep pursuing me and preventing me from finding the rest and satisfaction I seek from the indulgence of my passions. I won’t hold anything back from You. I am all Yours.”

How do we abide in His grace? By offering every thought, word, and deed of our consciously to Him. By striving to bring every movement of our heart before the light of His face—even, or especially, those impulses that push us towards sin. We take our weaknesses, foibles, and passions—“our heart in its poverty,” as it says in the hymn—and we present them to Christ as an offering. We bring them to Him in prayer and invite Him in, so that the uncreated energy of His saving grace can act in us to heal the created energy of our passions and to implant in us the virtues. We give ourselves to Him as we are, since He asks of us nothing else, and His grace accomplishes and perfects everything in us. We bring ourselves to God as prosphora, an offering, and we lift ourselves up to Him through repentance, through our sincere desire to be united with Him. And through this lifting up, this ‘anaphora,’ God sheds abroad His Holy Spirit into our hearts, and changes us into the sons of God, who cry out in our hearts, “Abba, Father,” (cf. Rom. 5:5, 8:15). If we make this the ceaseless striving of our spirit, then every day can become a mystical Liturgy of the heart. Then like a true son, we will always be ready to say, Father, not my will, but Thine, be done (Lk. 22:42). This is the only true monastic life. This is the deepest call of our hearts. Let us settle for nothing less; for if we fail to live an authentic monastic life, then we have left the world in vain.

I leave you with this verse from the Triodion, which is sung at the close of the monastic tonsure service:

Let us understand, brethren, the power of this mystery. For when the Prodigal Son turned back from sin to the Father’s house, the most-gracious Father, going forth to meet him, kissed him, and bestowed upon him again the tokens of his proper glory; and with those on high He maketh a mystical festivity, sacrificing the fatted calf. Let us then live a life worthy of the loving Father, Who hath offered; and worthy of the glorious Offering, the Saviour of our souls.

Amen.