Mercy of God towards sinners
“There shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than ninety-nine just, who need not penance.”—Luke 15:7
In today’s gospel we read that the Pharisees murmured against Jesus Christ because he received sinners and ate with them. “This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them” (Luke 15:2). Hearing this, our Lord answered them: If any of you had a hundred sheep and lost one of them, would he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the one that was lost? Would he not keep searching until he found it? And having found it, would he not lay it on his shoulders and, full of joy, say to his friends and neighbors: “Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost” (Luke 15:6)?
Then the Son of God concluded: “I say to you, there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just, that need not penance.” There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who returns to God than over many just souls who already stand in his grace. Let us, then, speak today of the mercy that God shows to sinners: first, in calling them to repentance; second, in receiving them when they return.
First Point.—Mercy of God in calling sinners to repentance.
1. After Adam had sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, he fled from the face of the Lord in shame for the sin he had committed. What must the angels have felt when they saw God, having as it were lost Adam, going after him and calling him, almost in tears: “Adam, where art thou?” (Gen. 3:9). My beloved Adam, where are you? These words, says Father Pereyra in his commentary on this passage, “are the words of a father in search of his lost son.”
The Lord, my brethren, has done the very same with you. You fled from him, and he has so often called you to repentance through confessors and preachers. Who was it that spoke to you when they urged you to do penance? It was the Lord. Preachers, as St. Paul says, are his ambassadors. “For Christ, therefore, we are ambassadors; God, as it were, exhorting by us” (2 Cor. 5:20). And so the Apostle writes to the sinners of Corinth: “For Christ, we beseech you, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20). Explaining these words, St. Chrysostom says: Ipse Christus vos obsecrat: quid autem obsecrat? Reconciliamini Deo—“Christ himself entreats you; and what does he entreat? To make peace with God.” The saint adds: Non enim ipse inimicus gerit, sed vos—“It is not God who acts as an enemy, but you”; that is, God does not refuse to make peace with the sinner, but the sinner refuses to be reconciled with God.
2. And in spite of this refusal, the Lord does not cease to keep calling the sinner by so many interior voices, inspirations, remorses of conscience, and fears of chastisement. So has God dealt with you, my Christian: seeing that you turned a deaf ear, he laid his hand to the scourge. He called you by that persecution, by that loss of goods, by the death of that relative, by that grave illness which threatened you with death.
He set before your eyes the bent bow of your own damnation—not that he might see you damned, but that he might see you delivered from the hell you deserved, as David says: “Thou hast given a warning to them that fear thee, that they may flee from before the bow, that thy beloved may be delivered” (Ps. 60:6). Those trials you called misfortunes; but no, they were mercies that God was showing you; they were the voice of God calling you to forsake sin, that you might not be lost. “My jaws are become hoarse” (Ps. 69:4). My son, says God, I have almost lost my voice in calling you. “I am weary of entreating thee” (Jer. 15:5). I have worn myself out begging you to offend me no more.
3. For your ingratitude you deserved that he should call you no longer; but he has gone on calling you. And who was it that called you? It was a God of infinite majesty, who one day must judge you, and on whom your eternal happiness or ruin depends. And what were you but a wretched worm, deserving of hell? And why did he call you? To restore to you the life of grace that you had lost. “Return ye and live” (Ezek. 18:32). To gain the grace of God, it would be a small thing to spend a hundred years in a desert amid fasting and penance. Yet God offered it to you for a single act of sorrow.
You refused that act, and even so he did not abandon you, but came after you, saying: “And why will you die, house of Israel?” (Ezek. 18:31). Like a father who runs weeping after a son who is throwing himself willfully into the sea, God came after you, saying out of the compassion he had for you: My son, why do you want to be lost? “Why will you die, house of Israel?”
4. As a dove that wants to enter a tower, and finding every entrance closed, keeps circling around it and does not give up until she finds an opening and goes in—just so, says St. Augustine, did the divine mercy act toward him while he was out of God’s grace. Circuibat super me fidelis a longe misericordia tua—“Thy faithful mercy circled around me from afar.” The Lord has done the same with you, my brother. As often as you sinned—every time you sinned—you drove God from your soul, as Job says: “The wicked have said to God: Depart from us” (Job 21:14).
And instead of abandoning you, what did God do? He stood at the door of your ungrateful heart, and by his knocking made you know that he was outside, knocking to be let in. “Behold I stand at the gate and knock” (Rev. 3:20). And he begged you, as it were out of pity for him, to let him in. “Open to me, my sister” (Cant. 5:2). Open to me, he said; I want to deliver you from your ruin; I want to forget all the wrongs you have done me, if you will only give up sin.
Perhaps you will not open to me now for fear of becoming poor by restoring goods that are not yours, or by giving up the person who provides for you? And I, says God, can I not provide for you? Perhaps you think you would lead a bitter life if you gave up the friendship that keeps you separated from me? And can I not content you and make your life a happy one? Ask those who love me with their whole heart, and see how they, content with my grace, would not exchange their state—humble and poor though it be—for all the delights and riches of the monarchs of the earth.
Second Point.—Mercy of God in waiting for sinners to return to him.
5. We have considered the divine mercy in calling sinners; let us now consider God’s patience in waiting for them to repent. That great servant of God, D. Sancia Carillo, a penitent of Father John of Ávila, used to say that, pondering the great patience God has with sinners, she longed to build a church and name it “The Patience of God.” Ah, my sinners, who could ever have borne with us as much as God has borne with us? If the offenses you have committed against God had been offered to a man—even the best friend you had, even your own father—he would surely have taken revenge on you.
When you offended God, he could have struck you down; you offended him again, and instead of punishing you he did you good, preserved your life, and provided for you. He pretended, as it were, not to see the affronts you offered him, that you might come to your senses and stop wronging him. “Thou overlookest the sins of men for the sake of repentance” (Wis. 11:24). But how can this be, Lord—you who cannot look upon a single sin, and yet you see so many and keep silent? “Thy eyes are too pure to behold evil, and thou canst not look on iniquity. Why lookest thou upon them that do unjust things, and holdest thy peace?” (Hab. 1:13).
You see the vindictive man who prizes his own honor above yours; the thief who, instead of restoring what he has taken, goes on stealing; the unchaste man who, instead of being ashamed of his filthiness, parades it and boasts of it; the giver of scandal who, not content with the offenses he commits himself, tries to draw others into offending you as well. You see all this and keep silent? And do not punish it?
6. St. Thomas writes: Omnis creatura tibi factori deserviens excandescit adversus injustos—“Every creature, serving you its Maker, is inflamed against the unjust.” He means that all creatures—earth, fire, air, water—because they all serve God, would by natural instinct wish to punish the sinner and avenge the wrongs he does to their Creator; but God in his mercy holds them back. But, Lord, you wait for these wicked men that they may come to their senses, and do you not see that they abuse your mercy to insult you all the more? The prophet Isaiah cries out: “Thou hast been favorable to the nation, O Lord, thou hast been favorable to the nation: art thou glorified?” (Isa. 26:15). You have waited for them so long, you have held back the chastisement; but what glory have you gained from it? They have grown worse than before. Why so much patience with these ungrateful souls? Why do you go on waiting for them and not punish them?
The same prophet answers: “The Lord waiteth that he may have mercy on you” (Isa. 30:18). God waits for the sinner that he may one day repent, and so be pardoned and saved. “As I live, saith the Lord, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11). St. Augustine goes so far as to say that, were God not God, he would be unjust for the excessive patience he shows toward sinners. Deus, Deus meus, pace tua dicam, nisi quia Deus esses, injustus esses—“O God, my God, with your leave I say it, were you not God, you would be unjust.”
By waiting for those who use his patience only to sin the more, God seems to do an injustice to his own honor. “We sin,” the saint continues; “we cling to sin” (some of us become fast friends with sin, and so sleep on in it for months and years); “we rejoice in sin” (some go so far as to glory in their wickedness); “and you are appeased! We provoke you to anger—you invite us to mercy!” We seem to be in a contest with God: we to goad him into punishing us, and God to call us to pardon.
7. Lord, cries Job, what is man, that you make so much of him? Why do you set yourself to love this creature so? “What is man that thou shouldst magnify him? or why dost thou set thy heart upon him?” (Job 7:17). St. Dionysius the Areopagite writes that God goes after sinners like a scorned lover, begging them not to be lost. Deus etiam a se aversos amatorie sequitur, et deprecatur ne pereant—“God follows with love even those who turn away from him, and begs them not to perish.” He keeps saying to them: Ungrateful souls, why do you flee from me? I love you, and desire nothing but your good. Ah, sinners, says St. Teresa, take heed: he who now calls you and comes after you is the same Lord who one day must judge you; and if you are lost, know that the many mercies he now shows you will be the greatest of the torments you will suffer in hell.
Third Point.—Mercy of God in receiving penitent sinners.
8. If a subject rebels against an earthly prince and then goes to beg his pardon, the prince drives him from his presence and will not so much as look at him. But God does not act this way with us when we come in humility to ask his forgiveness. “The Lord your God is merciful, and will not turn away his face from you if you return to him” (2 Chron. 30:9). God does not know how to turn his face away from one who comes back in penitence to his feet.
Jesus himself declared that he will never cast out anyone who returns to him. “And him that cometh to me, I will not cast out” (John 6:37). But how could he cast him out, when he himself invites him to return and promises to embrace him? “Return to me, saith the Lord, and I will receive thee” (Jer. 3:1). In another place he says: Sinners, I had to turn my back on you, because you first turned your backs on me; but turn back to me, and I will turn back to you. “Turn to me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn to you, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 1:3).
9. Oh, with what tenderness God embraces a sinner who returns to him! This is what Jesus Christ wished us to understand when he said that he is the good shepherd who, as soon as he finds the lost sheep, holds it dear and lays it on his own shoulders. “And when he hath found it, doth he not lay it upon his shoulders rejoicing?” (Luke 15:5). This same tenderness he showed us in the parable of the prodigal son, telling us that he is the father who, when his lost son returns, goes out to meet him, embraces him, kisses him, and in receiving him almost faints for the joy he feels. “And running to him, he fell upon his neck and kissed him” (Luke 15:20).
10. God further declares that when the sinner repents, he will forget the sins he has committed, as though that soul had never offended him. “But if the wicked do penance for all the sins which he hath committed…living, he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done” (Ezek. 18:21–22). By the prophet Isaiah, the Lord goes so far as to say: “Come and accuse me, saith the Lord. If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow” (Isa. 1:18). Were your consciences as red as crimson dye, they shall become white as snow. But mark especially these words, Come and accuse me—as if God were saying: Sinners, come to me, and if I do not pardon and embrace you, reprove me and reproach me for breaking my promise. But no—God cannot despise a heart that humbles itself and repents. “A contrite and humble heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Ps. 51:19).
11. God counts it his own glory to show mercy and to pardon sinners. “And therefore shall he be exalted sparing you” (Isa. 30:18). Holy Church says that in this God displays his omnipotence—in pardoning and showing mercy to sinners: “O God, who manifestest thy omnipotence above all in sparing and showing mercy.” Do not think, my dear sinner, that God will make you toil a long while before he pardons you: the moment you want pardon, he is ready to grant it.
See what the Scripture says: “Weeping, thou shalt not weep, he will surely have pity on thee” (Isa. 30:19). You shall not have to weep for long; at the first tear you shed in sorrow for your sins, God will have mercy on you. “At the voice of thy cry, as soon as he shall hear, he will answer thee” (Isa. 30:19). God does not deal with us as we deal with him: he calls us, and we turn a deaf ear; but not so God—the moment he hears you say, My God, forgive me, at once he answers and grants your pardon.
Points for Reflection
1. “To gain the grace of God, it would be a small thing to spend a hundred years in a desert amid fasting and penance. Yet God offered it to you for a single act of sorrow” (§3)
2. “God waits for the sinner that he may one day repent, and so be pardoned and saved” (§6)
3. “At the first tear you shed in sorrow for your sins, God will have mercy on you” (§11)