In Homily 1 of “On Repentance and Almsgiving,” Chrysostom wrote that:
There were two brothers. Having divided
the paternal inheritance between themselves, one remained at home, the other
squandered all that was given to him and departed to a distant land because he
could not bear the shame of poverty. I wanted to speak of this parable from the
outset to that you could learn that, if we are attentive, there is remission of
sins even after baptism. I do not way this to put you in a state of inertia,
but to distance you from discouragement, because discouragement produces worse
evils among us than inertia. Therefore, this son bears the image of those who
suffer the fall after the Laver. (John Chrysostom, On Repentance and
Almsgiving [trans. Gus George Christo; The Fathers of the Church 96;
Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1998], 11
Here
is the relevant portion from PG 49:282:
Elsewhere, in Homily 3 of the same work, Chrysostom
wrote that:
On the night Christ was betrayed, peter was standing near the hot embers
warming himself, and a certain girl approached him said to him, “Yesterday,
you too were together with this man.” And he said, “I do not know this
man.” Then he said it a second and a third time, and his denial was
complete. Afterwards, Christ looked Peter straight in the face, speaking to him
with a gaze. He did not speak to him with His mouth, in order to avoid shaming
him before the Jews and oppressing His own disciple. Rather, He spoke to him
with a gaze. “Peter, what I was saying before is happening.” Understanding this,
Peter began crying and did not simply cry but wept bitterly. He performed a second
baptism with the tears from his eyes. By crying bitterly, he wiped away his
sin; thereafter, he was entrusted with the keys of the heavens. (On
Repentance and Almsgiving, 40)
