A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. (Luke 15: 11-13, KJV)
The best known of all the New Testament narratives of Jesus, The Parable of the Prodigal Son in the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke would be more appropriately titled, The Parable of the Munificent Father. There are wastrel sons in plenty in world literature. What commands our attention in this tale of family ties broken and mended is the boundless generosity and compassion of the agrieved parent, whom Christ wants us to see as an earthly type of our all-forgiving heavenly Father. The ordeal father and son have endured is etched on their solemn faces in this poignantly stylized rendering of the reconciliation scene by Ukrainian Greek Catholic Iconmaker Ulyana Tomkevych, now on view on the New Iconography of Lviv page in the Schools of Sacred Art section. A glimpse of liturgical garb under the older man's cloak underscores the theological meaning of the encouter, while panels depicting the prodigal's decline and fall emphaszie the extravagant graciousness of the loving welcome the father affords his wayward son. (John Kohan)