I’ve seen the term “prodigal son” used in other ways before, but it’s pretty much always “the prodigal son returns”. I’ve tried to Google it before and that has only confused me more honestly.
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In the bible there is a story about a family, one son who is well behaved and does the right thing, and the other son is bad and wastes his money and runs off in a huff at his dad. When the bad son returns, the father has a big feast and celebrates, and the good son feels upset by this. After all, the good son did the good thing and never was celebrated, but the father says the right thing to do is to forgive the bad brother and make him feel welcome in the home again.
It’s a story about the nature of love and forgiveness, and that (from a Christian perspective) it is important to welcome sinners who repent, even if we might personally feel they don’t deserve it.
More broadly, we use the term to mean “someone who left, came back, and now we party”.
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