Luke 15:16

And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat. So those who foolishly squander their possessions on others, find none to give them even husks in their misery and want. S. Chrysostom (Serm. 1) says, "Hunger, to luxury a torment, is now his lot, that where his guilt had been flagrant there an avenging punishment might rage." And again, "How cruel a service! He lives with unclean animals, yet does not share in their feast. Wretched man that he is; half famished, he hungers for the swine's coarse food, yet does not obtain it.

S. Jerome (Epist. 146) here remarks, "that the Devil, when he has brought a man into subjection, fires his soul with desires of all kinds, but cheats him of their gratification, that by longing after them he may increase his guilt, and by failing to gratify them may add to his punishment and misery." Such is the deceitfulness and the tyranny of Satan. "Husks" are the empty pods of beans, peas, and the like, which fill but do not nourish the body. Yet country folk mix these husks with flour or meal, and make thereof a common kind of black bread on which they live. Hence Horace (Epist. 1, lib. ii.) writes, "He lives on husks and coarse bread." Jansenius understands by "husks," the fruit of the Carob tree, which is like a bean, of a blackish colour, curved, as long as a man's finger, and as broad as his thumb. Each pod contains four berries called ceratia from their likeness to a horn (κέζας ;). These afford excellent food for swine, and are also eaten by men.

But by "husks" the Fathers understand "that worldly and vain knowledge which begets vanity, such as the writings of the poets, or the harangues of the orators." "Wherein," says S. Augustine, "this man sought to find something belonging to the higher life, but could not." The word, however, may be taken to mean more fully "carnal gratifications which puff out and afflict the soul but do not satisfy its yearnings." So S. Chrysostom in the Catena writes, "If thou lovest good wine, thou lovest husks; if thou longest for gold, thou dost seek for husks; if thou followest after sensual pleasures, thou askest for the food of swine."