I love you ❤️

A Journey into the Hearts of the Lost Son and His Brother in Relation to Their Father’s Love
On the third Sunday of the Great Lent, the Church reads the parable of the lost son.
This beautiful story, recorded in the gospel of St. Luke chapter 15 tells of a loving father and his two sons, each responding differently to his love. At first glance, our focus is drawn to the younger son—often called the “lost son”—who makes a heartbreaking decision to take his share of the inheritance and abandon his father. He squanders everything in reckless living, leaving his father heartbroken and longing for his return.
However, as we reflect more deeply, we are faced with a question: Who is the real lost son?
Is it the younger son, who eventually recognizes his father’s love and returns? Or is it the older son, who, though he never physically left, seems just as distant, if not more, from his father’s love?
At the turning point of the story, everything changes. The younger son, in his desperation, suddenly “comes to himself.” He reevaluates his situation and realizes:
“How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!”
At that moment, it is as if he hears his father’s heart whispering:
“Son, I LOVE YOU ❤️”
In an instant, everything shifts.
*“He arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry”
Then, the focus shifts to the older son—the one who never left, who faithfully served his father, yet seemingly never experienced his father’s love. Instead of rejoicing over his brother’s return, he becomes angry and says:
“Look, all these years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your command at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him!”
Scholars note that in the original language, the phrase “I have been serving you” can be translated as “I have been enslaved to you.”
At this moment, the father’s heart must have ached even more. Yet, he lovingly responds:
“Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.”
As if once again, he whispers the same words:
“Son, I LOVE YOU ❤️”
Tragically, the older son does not receive these words. He does not allow himself to be drawn into his father’s love, and so, he remains outside.
This is why Jesus says in John 6:44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
So, who is truly the lost son?
Is it the one who sinned, repented, and was drawn back by the father’s love? Or is it the one who never left, yet never recognized or received that love?
It seems that what truly leads to our lostness is not our sins themselves, but rather our failure to recognize the love of our Heavenly Father. The inability to hear His gentle whisper—
“Son, I LOVE YOU ❤️”
—is what truly makes us lost!