Half-Hours With The Saints and Servants of God/Part 1: 10. On the Mercy of God
10. — On the Mercy of God.
"How great is the mercy of the Lord, and His forgiveness to them that turn to Him." — Eccles. xvii. 28.
MERCY is the tranquillity of God's omnipotence and the sweetness of His omnipresence, the fruit of His eternity and the companion of His immensity, the chief satisfaction of His justice, the triumph of His wisdom, and the patient perseverance of His love.
Wherever we go there is mercy, the peaceful, active, endless mercy of our Heavenly Father. If we work by day, we work in mercy's light; and we sleep at night in the lap of our Father's mercy.
The courts of heaven gleam with its outpoured prolific beauty. Earth is covered with it, as the waters cover the bed of the stormy sea. Purgatory is, as it were, its own separate creation, and is lighted by its gentle moonlight, gleaming there soft and silvery, through night and day.
His mercy is simply infinite, for mercy is one of His perfections, while His love is the harmony of all.
Mercy does not tire of us, does not despair of us, does not give over its pursuit of us, takes no offence, repays evil with good, and is the ubiquitous minister of the precious Blood of Jesus. But love seems more than this. Love fixes upon each of us, individualises us, is something personal; but mercy is something by itself.
Love is the perfection of the uncreated , in Himself. Mercy is the character of the Creator.
Mercy pities, spares, makes allowances, condescends; and yet if mercy is not the reason of God's love, where else shall we find it in His infinity?
[Colombiere, Claude de la.— This learned and saintly Jesuit was born in the year 1641, and yielded up his soul to God at the early age of forty-one, at Paray le Monial. After a two years' sojourn at the court of James II. God led him to Paray, to the school of the Sacred Heart, that he might discover its treasures and make known their value. " It was distinctly told me," writes the blessed Margaret Mary, " that this great servant of God had been partly designed for the execution of this grand design."]
God so pardons our sins, that He blots out even the remembrance of the greatest outrage. God does not act as men do. He does not grant half a pardon.
When any one has betrayed our trust, or has mortally offended us — howsoever we may wish to become reconciled to the offender, or may cherish an earnest desire to forgive, and strive in our heart to do so — nevertheless we find it difficult to place the same confidence in him, or to treat him with the same affection as before; for there remains in the corner of our heart a tinge of bitterness from time to time, or when we call to mind what he has done to us.
Our merciful Lord is not subject to this weakness.
Oh! would that all sinners who sincerely repent of their past offences could see in His heart the feelings He has for them; — no resentment, no bitterness there! and how thoroughly He forgives them.
God does not stop there. Not content with forgetting our trespasses, He gives us back the merit of those good deeds which we had lost by losing His grace; He restores to us those merits and that grace with interest, and He places us in a position more advantageous than that in which we were when we fell away from Him.
I am not at all astonished that St. Mary Magdalen had not, even after thirty years had elapsed, ceased to weep for her sins, although she could not doubt but they had been remitted. I am not surprised that St. Peter should have been inconsolable even unto death for having failed in his fidelity to so good a Master, notwithstanding the certainty he had of being forgiven.
Can one be mindful that so good a Master has been offended without having one's heart torn with grief, and without feeling a hatred of one's self? Can we, who have so coolly insulted Him without any reason, having, on the contrary, a thousand reasons to love Him, we, who have for so long a time abused His love, His patience, His blessings, His mercy, can we, I say, recollect this without dying of regret and repentance?
It is that thought which redoubles my grief, at having so cruelly sinned against a God who has so readily forgiven me, who has returned good for evil, and all kinds of blessings in return for every kind of evil.
Can it be that I shall ever forget the ingratitude which He has so soon forgotten? that I should forgive my own infidelities, which He not only has pardoned but has urged me to accept His forgiveness many a time? in fine, that I should remain satisfied after having insulted His divine goodness so often and for so long a time, a God who does not love me less to-day, and who loves me even more now than before I had offended Him?