"Having gathered everything, my son departed to a far country, and there squander his possessions, living in fornication." Soon, very soon, the father's beloved son became the prodigal son. For the first unconscious sin of lovelessness came many of his offspring, and in the frenzy of sins he came to fornication – a complete falling away from God – the Heavenly Father. Seeking freedom, he fell into captivity, rejecting obedience out of love, and by self-will became a slave to sin and mortal sin.

Every sinner walks the same path. This deplorable procession begins with a darkening of the mind, it is inevitably followed by a relaxation of the will, then there is a distortion of conscience, and as a consequence of all this, the enemy's work ends with a fall – the corruption of the body. For the fallen, a terrible, decisive moment in life comes. Hell is ready to devour its victim already in life, but the Lord does not want the death of the sinner and knocks at the darkened heart by the circumstances of life, and may God grant him to respond to this call of God.

"Take heed, brethren, lest any of us be hardened, being deceived by sin," the Lord warns sinners. Bitterness is a friend of despair. The misfortunes brought the prodigal son to his senses, and deprivation became for him the blessing that made him think about himself and his dissolute life. "And I came within myself" (Luke 15:17) he remembered his past life in his father's house, realized his fall, saw his soul in the darkness of sin, and on the verge of death cried out for mercy.

This is a call to repentance for us. In order to begin to repent, we must come to our senses, see our soul and heart, our deeds, because when we sin, we are beside ourselves, we become mad and do not realize what we are doing. How often we, like the young man of the Gospel, seek freedom for our desires, our own will, and do not immediately understand that this freedom turns into slavery for us.

Having fallen away from God, deprived of God's grace, we cannot but experience a spiritual hunger that is painful for the soul. Darkness surrounds the heart, the anguish of the soul is so great that a person cannot find a place for himself, and is close to despair. Like pigs in life, we also eat the food of pigs - horns, all kinds of fakes and substitutions, up to false spirituality. A mind darkened by sin cannot help a person in need.

And woe to the despairing if help does not come from outside. The prodigal son, starving in a foreign land, gave no place to despair before the impending death, heard the voice of God's love, and "came to himself." And the whole path of his fall was revealed to him, beginning with the willful abandonment of the path drawn by God's Providence to the moment of the fall - the abominable trampling on everything of God.

  He also remembered his former parental love for him. The feeling of repentance awakened in the soul of the sinner gave rise to a holy determination in his soul to fall at the feet of his stepfather with a confession. "Father, I have sinned in heaven and before thee, and thy son is already worthy to be called: make me as one of thy hired servants." A humble and contrite heart does not think about sonship, it slavishly asks for mercy to be only a hireling, and in this it sees forgiveness for itself.

But "God will not despise a broken and humble heart." And in the prodigal son this promise was fulfilled in full: "And he was far away, when his father saw him, and he was merciful, and he fell upon his neck, and kissed him," and restored to him all his filial rights. "Such, I say unto you, is joy before the angels of God over the one sinner who repenteth," the Saviour testifies in this parable.

My beloved, our Heavenly Father will do the same to us sinners who repent. Repentance preserves us for the Kingdom of Heaven. Repentance is granted to us by God's love for mankind. Repentance erases the handwriting of sins and iniquities, purifies the heart. Every Christian soul is dear to the Lord, redeemed by the blood of His only-begotten Son. He Himself rejoices over the conversion of one sinner more than over 99 righteous men.

The Lord knows that the strength of the fighter is strong, but we are weak. And He goes to meet our will and kisses the very intention to repent. Therefore, let us not postpone repentance and delay correction. Great Lent is given to us as a time of increased repentance, turning into ourselves, so that we do not sink into the mire of vices and passions, so that, seeing ourselves in the form of the prodigal son, we arise from the darkness of sin.

The Heavenly Father is waiting for us and is ready to come to the aid of our weakness. And we, like the prodigal son, must always remember and remember that our Heavenly Father has plenty of mercy both for sons and for hirelings; and His sun shines on both the good and the evil; and it rains on the just and the unjust, and they that labor in his house do not die in sins. And we are children who have been adopted by baptism to God, and if we are spiritually starving, it is only because we do not live according to God's commandments, and we also depart to a distant country.

It is not God and God's grace that leaves us, but we leave, led by the arbitrariness of our often unconscious and even insane desires. My beloved, let us not hesitate to postpone repentance. How can we know how long God will tolerate our sins?  Will the Lord not now demand from us an account of the sins we have committed? "Foolish, this night thy soul shall be taken from thee" (Luke 12:20)

– and the judgment of Divine justice will be carried out. Are we ready for it? Often an evil thought lulls us to sleep: "God is merciful, well, what sins do I have, I did not steal, I did not kill, I did not commit fornication." And that our heart is unfaithful, full of all ill-will, impurity and deceit, and faith and love are only on the tip of the tongue; this is the darkness that obscures for us the light of God's truth and love, about which we either do not think at all, or delve into matters of the heart extremely rarely and sluggishly. But, "what has light to do with darkness"? (2 Corinthians 6:14).

And the Lord judges our thoughts and heartfelt intentions, out of mercy allowing us to be punished by our fathers, striving to bring the truth to our senses. And St. The Gospel reminds us of everything: "If we confess our sins, the Lord is faithful and just, may He forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). But do not the wrath of God await those who are careless, and unrepentant, and prodigals, who boldly reject the care of the Heavenly Father for themselves?