Young people can finally go back to nightclubs. Clubs have been closed by the Invisible Magic Friend’s Holy Virus.
This is exactly the same as The Prodigal Son. I bet you never thought of that. This teaches us something or other.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10UGv7HEbiGg-13rMQMXXPLD3lGMcz8XN/view?usp=sharing
Platitude of the Day 
This TFTD was very short. I’m not complaining but it’s odd that there’s so little to about what Jesus supposedly said & how that links to his own Holy Virus.
As to the Prodigal Son, he couldn’t have been, er, prodigal in the recent past because places of pleasure & entertainment were closed. Perhaps a lockdown version of the story will emerge in coming years where vicars tell of the urge to live wildly being the same as actually living wildly – either way, even if you only thought about breaking away, groveling before the father figure is still required.
LikeLike
This woman’s still in training for a grunt level religious job yet gets three minutes to throw out a disjointed babble of a ‘thought’ at licence-payers’ expense. There’s a whole world of scientists, philosophers and other much more qualified ‘thinkers’ out there, any of whom would do a massively better job. But they are disbarred because they don’t possess seemingly the most valuable qualification of all: belief in some kind [any kind will do] of god-fairy.
LikeLike
But this Thought was completely incoherent. The point of the Prodigal Son tale isn’t that boys will be boys, and each of the brothers is valued equally. It is that redemption from sin is more important than obediently toeing the line. The story was put into the mouth of Jesus because the Pharisees told him off for having a pint with a load of sinners, and whoever wrote Luke’s Gospel was against the Pharisees.
To be consistent, Nearly Rev Manfredi should have predicted that, having scrounged a loan from the Bank of Mum and Dad, clubbers would come home hungover, broke and suffering from Long Covid, and would then enjoy their parents’ love, medical care and a homecoming party, while their elder siblings got no thanks for wearing their masks on the Tube to work. Now that would be a Thought worth conjuring with.
LikeLike
I think that second paragraph is one of the most acute I’ve seen on here.
LikeLike
The Prodigal Son story is about forgiveness. According to Jesus, forgiveness should be unconditional, with no strings attached. One might argue this is not fair, but that is the whole point, and is why forgiving according to Jesus’s concept of it is terribly hard to do. It certainly wasn’t fair on the good brother who stayed at home and worked hard to see his profligate wastrel of a brother being forgiven by their father and taken back into the fold without any punishment. But if Christians genuinely want to forgive according to Christian teaching, then this is the model they should be following. I don’t think many contemporary Christians who claim to have forgiven those who have ‘trespassed against them’ have really taken this on board.
LikeLike
Or maybe repentance…the Prodigal Son turns his steps towards home and is met halfway…should say I haven’t actually listened to the piece yet.
LikeLike
Yes, this was a completely absurd concoction. As I heard it, ‘young people’ were on one hand (during lockdown) like the elder of the two sons in the parable – even though they had no option but to stay at home. Then, once restrictions were lifted, the same ‘young people’ turned into the prodigal, going out to celebrate and party. So where’s the parallel with her choice of extract from the BBOMS?
This just didn’t make sense – there wasn’t a stark division between cautious stay-at-homes, and a mass leaving of home by ‘young people’ on ‘Freedom Day.’ If so many went out to party it was with a sense of liberation; but I expect all of them made it home again afterwards – either the same night or the next day.
Ms Manfredi hadn’t really thought this one through at all, especially since the father figure in the parable is obviously intended to represent her IMF – which doesn’t exist in the lives of the greater part of those revelling ‘young people.’
As most have suggested above, it would have been far more enlightening to hear this ordinand, on the threshold of professional priesthood, give her ‘faith perspective’ on the COVID virus, which can only have been ‘created’ by her ‘creator’ IMF.
LikeLike
Quick chorus, anyone?
Will I play the wild rover?
No never no more
I’ll go home to my parents, confess what I’ve done,
And I’ll ask them to pardon their prodigal son
And if they forgive me as oft-times before,
Then I promise I’ll play the wild rover no more
And it’s no, nay, never!
No nay never no more
Will I play the wild rover?
No never no more
LikeLike