Why Is God Lenient?

by Fr. Jess Ty  |  07/19/2026  |  Weekly Reflection

Dear Family of God,

Why does God seem lenient to sinners and wicked people?

The book of Wisdom describes God as unique: “There is no god besides you who have the care of all… For your might is the source of justice; your mastery over all things makes you lenient to all.” (Wisdom 12:13ff).

The context of Wisdom 12, our first reading this weekend, is that the sacred author is discussing, in particular, God’s mercy on the Canaanites. Despite their moral evil, God did not wipe them out at once but allowed them hundreds of years and many opportunities to repent. To repent what? “Their merciless slaughter of children” and “These parents who murder helpless lives” (Wis. 12:5,6). According to Dr. Bersgma, ‘The Canaanites practice child sacrifice to their gods, which also served as a kind of birth control—since promiscuous sexual activity in the worship of their divinities produced “unwanted” children. Sounds like today.

God is not a tyrant. He is a God strong enough to be gentle. When we challenge His authority, he is not provoked with a violent response, as is the case of human dictators. We all should imitate our God. Like Judge Frank Carpio, our power should be combined with justice and kindness.

The Parable of wheat and weeds in our Gospel is teaching us the mystery of evil; that God is not the source of evil, it is the enemy, and about the Final Judgement. We tend to make quick judgements, often, “pulling out the weeds” immediately. In this parable, God is teaching us wait to pull out the weeds until harvest time. He wants us to wait so that we don’t harm the wheat, and so that the weeds (or the bad ones) will be given a chance to repent, be converted and be saved.

Yours in Christ through Mary Immaculate.