3rd Sunday after Pentecost 14.6.15 Depths of mercy
Everything about God is good and all that comes from Him is good. If things turn bad later on that is never God’s fault. It must be the result of some kind of rebellion against Him.
And this is exactly what we find to be the case. He made all things and ‘saw that they were good’. Then there was the sin of the rebellious angels, and the first sin of mankind. And great disorder and trouble were the result.
The essential goodness of God would have remained in every part of His creation if there had not been this disobedience.
Things are good when they are in union with Him; they are bad when they are not.
God keeps His creation in order, and when it goes into disorder He seeks to repair the problem.
Of all the qualities God has one of the most amazing (and useful to us) must be His mercy.
In love He created the world and keeps it in being. In mercy He deals with the rebellious elements in His creation.
Mercy is just one aspect of His love but it is the most amazing to us, insofar as it never runs out.
For ourselves we can forgive the odd offence easily enough. But to forgive millions of offences every day for thousands of years – that takes a lot of mercy!
God gives us another chance, again and again.
There is no limit to His mercy, though there is a time limit as to how long we have to get things right with Him (either the length of our life, or the length of time till the Last Day).
He will forgive any sin provided there is sufficient degree of contrition on the part of the sinner.
He will forgive the same sin any number of times provided the sinner is taking some steps to change his behaviour.
Mercy is Re-creation. Sin by nature leads to death; but with mercy the deserved death is turned to another chance at life.
We should be very grateful for such a state of things. In strict justice we could have been wiped out before this, and would have no claim on Heaven.
But Mercy enables us to be still here, and still hoping for Heaven.
On Friday we had the feast of the Sacred Heart. Today we have the parable of the Lost Sheep.
These both remind us of the strong desire that God has to save us.
We might be happy to write off one in a hundred but not the Good Shepherd; not the Sacred Heart, which burns with such intensity in love for man.
God does not begrudge forgiveness but rejoices in it (cf the angels in today’s parable; and also the parable of the Prodigal Son – the happiness of the father (Lk 15,20)).
As soon as we turn back to God we are drawn into His order, made right with ourselves and all else.
This is the essence of mercy. It restores to normal.
‘Normal’ means that we are in complete union with God and every part of our being is working as it should.
We are no longer proud in intellect or rebellious in will. We submit to His authority and so order returns to His creation.
Many regard God (and the Church) as killjoys, determined to stop anyone from enjoying themselves.
It is not so. It just happens that the greatest happiness we can know is found in complete and voluntary submission to the will of God.
The world runs a lot better when this happens, but so do the people!
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