The Prodigal World / Fulton J. Sheen

An interpretation of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, with Western Civilisation being the younger son, the Church being the Father’s House and the Sheen's extraordinarily insightful, if unique, interpretation of the Parable of the Prodigal Son in this work, is historical rather than moral. The younger son in the parable is Western Civilization. After many long centuries in union with the Father's house, the Church, Western Civilization took its inheritance -- not inheritance in the form of gold and silver, but spiritual capital in the form of the eternal truths necessary for salvation. Carried away by its newfound independence from the Father's House, it began little by little to spend the patrimony that Christ committed to His Church: first its belief in the need for authority, then its belief in Scripture as the revealed word of God, followed by its belief in the Divinity of Christ, the necessity of grace and, finally, the existence of God as Lord and Supreme Judge. In our own day, it has spent its last penny living riotously. How it can come to its senses once again and find redemption is the subject of this book.’s inheritance: eternal truths necessary for salvation.

The country was in its worst depression ever. People were jobless, poor and desperate. The First World War and the Russian Revolution had only set the stage for much greater calamaties yet to come. With prophetic insight, Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979), who had just turned 40, delivered these powerful messages that are as applicable today -- with very few exceptions -- as they were on the day when they were penned. It is obvious from these pages that they were the product of many hours spent in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament eliciting the aid of the Holy Spirit.