God is Merciful

A Father, Whose compassion is endless to those who are Truly Repentant

There is nothing more unique to God's nature than to be merciful and to spare. It is for this reason that God calls the sinner back from his evil ways and receives him with joy on returning to his friendship.

Sometimes, God calls the sinner back to his grace by remorse of conscience, sometimes he speaks to him by a book, sometimes by a sermon, and sometimes by a friend.

St. Andrew Avellinus practiced law for some time. One day, while defending the cause of one of his clients, a lie escaped his lips. Soon after he read in Holy Scripture: “The mouth that lies, kills the soul." (Wis. 1:11) At these words he felt touched with exceedingly great sorrow and remorse of conscience, so much so that he resolved to give up the practice of law and consecrate the remainder of his life to the service of God in the ecclesiastical state. St. Augustine, St. Ignatius, and many other saints were converted by the reading of a pious book.

Thousands of sinners enter into themselves by the sermons they hear, especially at the time of a mission or a Jubilee. Others again owe their conversion to the charitable exhortations of good friends. Others again are brought back to God by a reverse of fortune.

As God does not wish for the death of the sinner, but wishes that he should be converted and live, he tries various means and ways to make him leave his sinful life and return to the friendship of God.

The conversion of King Manasses is a most striking proof of this truth. Manasses was twelve years old when his father died. He succeeded him on the throne but did not take to his piety and fear of the Lord. He was as impious, as his father had been pious towards God and his people. He introduced all the abominations of the Gentiles, which the Lord had extirpated from among the children of Israel. He apostatized from the Lord. He brought in again and encouraged idolatry, and even in the temple of the Lord, he erected an altar to the demon-god Baal. He introduced into the temple of the true God such abominations as had never been heard of before, and which are too shameful to relate.

To crown his impiety, he made his son pass through fire, in honor of the demon-god Moloch. He used divinations observed omens and gathered soothsayers to do evil before the Lord.

The Lord often warned him through his prophets, but in vain. At last “the Lord spoke to his prophets, saying: Because Manasses, King of Juda, has done these wicked abominations, beyond all that the Amorites did before him, and has made Juda also to sin with his filthy doings, therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring evils upon Jerusalem and Juda, that whosoever shall hear of them, both his ears shall tingle. I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the weight of the house of Achab, and I will efface Jerusalem, as tables are to be effaced...and I will deliver them into the hands of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies."

Manasses, instead of entering into himself, added cruelty to idolatry. He shed so much innocent blood that, to use the words of Holy Writ, "he filled Jerusalem up to the mouth." According to Josephus, “he went so far in his contempt for God as to kill all the just of the children of Israel, not sparing even the prophets, but taking away their lives day by day, so that streams of blood were flowing through the streets of Jerusalem."

Now, do you think such an impious a wreteh could be converted? O wonderful power of prayer! So great is thy efficacy with God, that, should a man be ever so impious and perverse, he will not fail to obtain forgiveness of the Lord if he prays for it with a sincere heart.

"And the Lord," says Holy Writ, “brought upon Jerusalem the captains of the army of the King of the Assyrians, and they took Manasses and carried him, bound with chains and fetters, to Babylon. In his great distress and affliction, he entered into himself, and he prayed to the Lord his God and did penance exceedingly before the God of his fathers. He entreated him and he besought him earnestly, and the Lord heard his prayer, and brought him again to Jerusalem unto his kingdom.”

From that time forward he endeavored to serve the Lord the more fervently, the more grievously he had offended him. He abolished idolatry, destroyed the temples, altars, groves, the high altars put up in honor of the heathen deities, repaired the altar of Jehovah in the Temple of Jerusalem. He sacrificed upon it victims and peace-offerings, offerings of praise, and he commanded Juda to serve the Lord, the God of Israel.

How true are those words that the Lord spoke one day to Blessed Henry Suso: "Imagine," said He to His great servant, “that the whole world was on fire, and then see how quickly a handful of straw cast into it is consumed! But I forgive a repentant sinner a thousand times quicker than a handful of straw can be burned up in the largest fire."

"Ah, yes!" exclaims the holy Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney, "all the sins ever committed are but a grain of sand beside a huge mountain, if compared with the mercy of God."

Hence the Lord wishes every priest to tell poor sinners what He one day commanded His prophet to tell them for their encouragement, namely: “Say to the faint-hearted, Take courage, and fear not. If the wicked man shall do penance of all his sins, I will no longer remember his iniquities which he hath wrought. Why will you die? Return and live. My children, why will you destroy yourselves, and of your own free will condemn yourselves to everlasting death? Return to me, and you shall live."

"Ah! fear not," said our Lord, one day, to St. Margaret of Cortona, "fear not to obtain the full remission of all thy sins. You will infallibly obtain it, and you shall inflame others colder and coyer. I have destined you as an example to all poor sinners, in order that they may clearly understand that I am that compassionate Father who welcomes back his most rebellious and most contumacious children; and that, if they ask my pardon and prepare to receive my grace, they will ever find me ready to give it just as quickly as I have turned to you."

From the moment of our repentance, all the disorders, all the crimes of our life, no matter how black, how hideous, they may be, will be drowned, as it were, in the ocean of God's mercy, and disappear as the darkest night disappears at the rising of the sun.

Source:

God Teacher of Mankind

Original 1878 Publication

Fr. Michael Muller, 1825 - 1899

CSSR or the Redemptorists founded by St. Alphonsus Liguori​​​​​​