The Friendship of the Word

What is the secret of these two parables, the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18: 10-14), and the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32), which dominate the prayers of the Great & Holy Lent? This is a question that keeps coming to me on every Great Lent. I am not complaining about any repetition! God forbid! Who can be fed up of the persistence of the Word? Nevertheless, I like to display my wonder publicly! Both, my wonder and my admiration! A Church who had inherited Holy Scriptures containing endless words, in writing the prayers during a great season, draws their pattern, in more than one of its services, from two parables which, together, do not exceed 37 verses! This is the secret! If a few verses are enough to exhort us, for forty days, to renew our life, what then could befriending a whole Book possibly do to us? In this Lent, the Church is telling us: “to return to God, means to return primarily to His Word”