And bring here the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:
Read Chapter 15
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
And bring hither the fatted calf. τον μόσχον, that particular calf which I ordered to be fattened for such a solemn occasion as this. All these things, the robe, the ring, the shoes, and the fatted calf, show the delight of the father, i.e. the joy of God and His angels at the conversion of a sinner, and teach us that by the great mercy of God, a penitent is restored to the same, or even a better position than that, which he held before he fell into sin.
But with S. Augustine, S. Jerome, and Bede, we may attach a separate meaning to each.
So we may take the best robe to mean not innocence, for this once lost cannot be regained, but first grace and love. Thus the Interlinear interprets it as, "the robe of the Holy Spirit, which is an earnest of immortal life." According to S. Ambrose, it is "the cloke of wisdom;" but S. Augustine considers it "the dignity which Adam lost."
By the ring we may understand the express image of God, which some see in one virtue, some in another. ...
Hence the Word has with deep perception called the souls of the prophets concubines, because He did not espouse them openly, as He did the Church, having killed for her the fatted calf.
