The Mercy of God

by David Lins  |  08/18/2019  |  (Being) Catholic Matters

I remember a recent conversation about the mercy of God. One of the people said, “If a serial killer is in heaven, I don’t want to be there.” I thought the person better tread carefully. Thanks to our free will, God will allow us to make that choice. But it sounds dangerously like the brother in the story of the prodigal son—unwilling to accept his father’s forgiveness.

I would propose his mercy is a much tougher pill to swallow than his judgement - although the two are inextricably intertwined.

We can all grasp the judgement of God. Why? We have all been hurt and would like to see the perpetrator get what is coming to them. Judgement from a just judge can be scary, but our minds can make sense of it.

The mercy of God? Beyond our comprehension.

Sure. We’d love to have God forgive our loved ones. But beyond that, we start to struggle a bit.

On a grand scale, we might bristle at the thought of a serial killer having a conversion before death. We might hate to think a dictator may have cried out for the mercy of God in the last moments of life. We find ourselves almost wishing they didn’t.

Even more difficult for some of us might be imagining someone who profoundly wounded us or our children somehow making it to heaven. And I don’t know your story and I cannot begin to imagine some of your struggles. I only know my own.

Yet, our Lord calls us out from the burdens of those hurts and into the freedom of praying for the conversion of others—even our enemies.

Imagine for a moment, you could go back in time and impact any of these people as children before they made the choices they made. Help them to take the right path. Would you do it? Of course!

And this is the heart of the Lord’s forgiveness, mercy, and yes, restoration. This is what we have the power to pray for.

God can give us the grace to pray for all souls. God can give us the grace to desire conversion of enemies.God can give us the grace to hope heaven is as crowded as possible.

(NOTE: Next week’s column will be on Page 4)

Questions? Comments? Email David at dlins@oloj.org.