Why did the prodigal son, in Sunday’s Gospel, decide to come home? He had become restless in his father’s house but now he had found a new and worse monotony, feeding the pigs abroad. He was hungry physically, but he also had a hunger for something deeper, as revealed by the little phrase “entering into himself” which introduces his monologue about going home (Luke 15:17 - our lectionary is more metaphorical: “he came to himself”).
By implication, he had been living “outside himself” beforehand, and only by “entering into” himself did he realise that he needed to “enter into” his home again: he realised he was a son, even though his sins had turned him into a slave, given nothing by his master.
