The Prodigal World

By Fulton J. Sheen

The present age is an age of plenty; it is also an age of famine. This famine, declares Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, is a famine for faith among those who doubt, a famine for God among those who substituted illusions for majestic faiths, and a famine for love amongst those who war. This spiritual famine has real con­sequences in the material order of things. Exclude God and society will devolve into corruption, contempt, and chaos. Yet “social reconstruction is conditioned upon spiritual regeneration”: if the world is ever to recover its lost social peace, it must once more find God. In these seventeen addresses, broadcast from December 29, 1935, to April 12, 1936, Sheen interprets the parable of the Prodigal Son in the light of spiritual experience in the modern world and points the way back to the Father’s House.

I will arise and go to my father, and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee. (Luke 15:18)

Preached with his customary conviction and fervor, Fulton J. Sheen’s The Prodigal World brings to mind the words of Christ: “It is fire that I have come to spread over the earth, and what better wish can I have than that it should be kindled?” And through that fire—the fire of truth and love—mankind can pass purified, refined, and redeemed, to the very heart of God.

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979), one of the most renowned Catholic priests of the twentieth century, was an eminent scholar, prolific author, and natural entertainer. His cause for canonization was opened in 2002, and in 2012 Pope Benedict XVI declared him “Venerable.” 

* * *

Paperback: 162pp.

ISBN: 978-1685953904