 The father can hardly be ignorant of the proposition my son deserves this suffering that he has brought on himself; and the son himself dins the proposition into his father’s head. But the father’s compassion is unaffected by the knowledge. The father in the parable is of course God, whose nature as gracious and forgiving is indicated in the parable. So Mother Teresa, unlike the characters in the Greek tragedies, is not interested in the question whether the sufferer brought his woes on himself through his choices. It is this gracious and forgiving God whose Son Mother Teresa sees and loves in each of her poor sufferers.