By Dr. Dencio Severo Acop
God doesn’t tire of forgiving us. It is us who tire of asking for forgiveness from God. This is from the late Pope Francis as Fr. Jeremy Paulin reminded us during his homily this Divine Mercy Sunday. I’ve also read about God’s untiring forgiveness from a book I read in 2016 about Polish Saint Faustina Kowalska who was recommended for beatification by Pope John Paul II. Saint Faustina was a mystic whose visions of the Lord bore the constant message of God’s lamentations from the fact that although His eternal presence in the blessed sacrament is ever-present, hardly anyone comes to visit thereby man fails to benefit from God’s generous mercy. As Saint Faustina witnessed, God told her that He didn’t want our sacrifice more than our asking for His mercy. The Church ultimately recognized the witness of the Saint and instituted Divine Mercy Sunday to commemorate the fact that God always wants to reconcile us to Himself coinciding with the end of the Holy Week celebration specifically addressing the doubting Thomases among us who need to see a sign before they can believe. God, in his infinitely miraculous ways, indeed “appears” to us saying: “Peace be with you. You believe because you can now see and feel my wounds. Happy are those who do not see me and yet believe. Do not be unbelieving, but believe. I am with you until the end of time”.
God’s limitless mercy has been the core message of Christ’s public ministry. Even if we review all of his miracles replete in the New Testament, we will find this constant theme. Paradoxically, it is God’s mercy and forgiveness operationalized through his son Jesus Christ which got the Messiah ultimately killed but in the process saves the world. The Pharisees tore their garments angrily exclaiming: “Who can forgive sins but God?” See, the mystery of God was at work but the Jewish leaders of the faith had already succumbed to the evil one. While they held the keys to the eternal kingdom, the Pharisees bore the sin of Lucifer — pride. With pride, there can be no humility. And without humility, there will be no asking for mercy and forgiveness. Thus, even after realizing their grievous sin of killing God following Christ’s death and resurrection, the Jewish leaders still insisted on their pride and decided to propagate a lie than acknowledge the truth. This lesson that the Pharisees refused to learn is the same lesson the world today refuses to learn still. This lesson is humility. The people who selfishly benefit from this world think they “are like God” unwilling to give up selfish pride even at the expense of truth. They are those among us who feel entitled to prosper at the expense of others they consider inferior and beneath them. Just the look of Jesus made the Pharisees unwilling to accept him as the Messiah. They could only see the Messiah as someone powerful as a robed King David Junior. They were shallow as the world today continues to be shallow. Judging a book by its cover! Yet, Jesus forgave them. Even while hanging on the cross, broken, humiliated, and dying. He said: “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do”. The Pharisees and Romans of today still don’t.
The world is still around and will continue to be around solely by the mercy and forgiveness of God. The Lord himself said this to Abraham when asked if He would still save Sodom even if only a few people in it remained faithful. The mystery of God is so deep and profound that no human could fathom his word unless their heart is in the right place with him. Only the humblest of humans are nearest to God because they have the least distractions and are completely focused on him. These are the poor, the suffering, the broken-hearted, and the powerless. On the other hand, those who are powerful by worldly standards and so full of themselves are farthest from the kingdom of God for their gods are their idols of money, power, pleasure, and pride. If the world, despite its immorality and wickedness, still exists, it is because of those in the world who persevere to bear their crosses following in the footsteps of the Lord obeying his will. It is because of the humble in the Lord and not the prideful in themselves. For God leaves none of his flock behind. Those not his own are already lost. But God’s door of mercy and forgiveness remains open longing for his lost children to return.
