ABSTRACT
In creation, through the word and action of prophet and apostle, in Bethlehem and at Golgotha, God promised and delivered to us his love. The Prodigal Son parable delivers to us a heartbreaking story of a man who is compulsively driven to hurt himself with wine, women, and gluttony, all while the love of his father awaits his return. With the gifts of the Holy Spirit to help us, we can change and move closer to the Christian way of love. It may take suffering, as in the life of St. John of The Cross; it may take a dramatic transformation as happened to Saul; it may take the gentle guidance of another as the Ethiopian eunuch learned from Philip, but conversion from a compulsive lifestyle to a life of love is certainly possible. At Pentecost, God gave us the opposite of Babel, one language, a common understanding, and one spirit.
