rodigal, when he
returns, is met with a welcome, and is gradually put in possession
of what he has lost--the robe, the shoes, the ring; and it all comes
from his being at one with his Father again (Luke 15:22ff.). The Son
of Man, historically, has again and again found the lost--the lost
gifts, the lost faculties, the lost charms and graces--and given
them back to the man whom he had also found and brought home to God.

Let us once more try to get our thoughts Theocentric as Jesus' are,
and our problems become simpler, or at least fewer. God's generosity
in forgiveness, God's love, he emphasizes again and again. Will a
man take Jesus at his word, and commit himself to God? That is the
question. Once he will venture on this step, what pictures Jesus
draws us of what happens! The son is home again; the bankruptcy, the
hideous solitude, the life among animals, bestial, dirty and empty,
and haunted with memories--all those things are past, when once the
Father's arms are round his neck, and his kiss on his cheek. He is
no more "alienated from the life of God" (Eph. 4:18; Col. 1:21),
"without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12), an "enemy of God" (Rom.
5:10); he was lost and is found, and the Father himself, Jesus says,
cries: "Let us be merry" ("Euphranthomen"). If we hesitate about it,
Jesus calls us once more to "think like God," and tells us other
stories, with incredible joy in them--"joy in the presence of the
angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." We must go back to
his central conception of God, if we are to realize what he means by
salvation. St. Augustine (Conf., viii. 3) brings out the value of
these parables, by reminding us how much more we care for a thing
that has been ours, when we have lost it and found it again. The
shepherd has a new link with his sheep lost and found again, a new
story of it, a shared experience; it is more his than ever. And
Jesus implies that when a man is saved, he is God's again, and more
God's own than ever before; and God is glad at heart. As for the
man; a new power comes into his heart, and a new joy; and with God's
help, in a new spirit of sunshine, he sets about mending the past in
a new spirit and with a new motive--for love's sake now. If the
fruit of the past is to be seen, as it constantly is, in the lives
of others, he throws himself with the more energy into God's work,
and when the Good Shepherd goes seeking the lost, he goes with him.
Christian history bears witness,