THERE’S always hope despite whatever stupidities we commit or fall into. That, I think, is what the parable of the prodigal son, (cfr. Lk 15,11-32) among many other instances in the gospel, is telling us.
Yes, we can be so bad as to lose what we may call as our sense of sin. In fact, that expression is now often heard, given the widespread anomalies and perversities we are seeing these days. But as long as man is man, God may be angry for a time, but it is his love and mercy that will always prevail in the end.
It may happen, as is illustrated in that parable of the prodigal son, that the bad ones may earn God’s love and mercy more and sooner because of their repentance, than the good ones who may appear good but in their hearts evil actually albeit hiddenly reigns. Still, both will always be welcome to God’s love and mercy.
We should just try our best to be as faithful as we can to God and everybody else. But with this fact of life that we are all prone to fall into sin, let us also try to go back to God as soon as we can. Yes, we may be afraid and ashamed to do so, but let that fear and shame not stay long in us. We should always count on God’s ever available mercy no matter how unworthy we feel we are of it.
Let’s remember that our sinfulness can offer us a great occasion to gain a great sanctity. Many great saints passed through this path of their sinfulness. To be sure, sin does not cause sanctity. It, in fact, is the cause of the loss of sanctity. But if handled well, it can occasion the way to holiness. It can trigger a strong impulse toward developing a greater love for God and for others, which is what holiness is all about.
It’s really a matter of how we react to our sinfulness. If we are sorry for our sins and try to make up for them, then sanctity would be at our reach. God, always a loving father to us, will never deny his mercy. Neither will he deny his grace to make us as we ought to be—true image and likeness of his, and a good child of his.
In fact, if we go by the reasoning of St. Paul, God seems to have the habit of choosing the foolish things of the world, the weak, the low and the despised, in order to confound and shame the wise, the strong and the proud of this world. (cfr 1 Cor 1,27-28) Along this line, He can also choose a sinner to confound those who pride themselves in a worldly way as saints.
The reason for this, as St. Paul himself said, was “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Cor 1,29) As we all know, we have the tendency to replace God with our own selves. And so, God chooses the unlikely ones to put the proud in their proper places.
This is what happened to saints like St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Norbert, and many others who have become great saints in spite of or because of their very colorful past. As St. Augustine once said: “There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.”
There is always hope for everyone. God’s mercy, as we are told in the Psalms, endures forever. It is not God’s delight to see the death of a sinner but rather his conversion. (cfr Ez 18,23) And God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (cfr Jn 3,17)
