God Loves to Shower Us with His Mercy

With the start of Lent, Colleen Mallette encourages turning to our Loving Father for the forgiveness that He is so happy to give.

Have mercy on me, God, in accord with your merciful love; 
In your abundant compassion blot out my transgressions. (PSalm 51:3)

God LOVES to shower us with His love and mercy. Just as any good father loves to have his wayward child return to his loving arms after a period of estrangement. Or have a child say they are sorry for breaking something. The good father never stops loving his child, but rather he loves them all the more when the child wants to get over a hurt they’ve caused.

Likewise, when we are sorry for a hurt we have caused someone, it is like hurting God too. But our Heavenly Father won’t ever stop loving us because of any pain we caused. He wants us to acknowledge that sin, and be sorry for it so we can return to a right relationship with Him and the person we hurt.

Repentance means to be sorry for something bad we did and the desire to want to change and be better. The Sacrament of Reconciliation gives us that reason to look at what sinful behavior we have had lately, to realize the errors of our ways and to ask forgiveness so we can correct our path toward holiness.

Through God’s grace we can overcome our tendencies to repeat wrong words or actions and become better Christians. It is through His grace that we even know what He doesn’t want us to do and have the heart to want to rectify the relationships.

We should be so grateful that as Catholics we are blessed to have a means of telling God’s representative on earth what we are sorry for and to be told God forgives us. By doing this we receive the Holy Spirit anew and the peace of forgiveness from our Loving Father, through the loving fathers who serve His church.

Forgiveness is the toughest but greatest expression of love. We shouldn’t wait to offer it to someone we know who needs to hear it, and we shouldn’t wait to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation to hear it ourselves.

When Jesus walked our land and started to become known for His healing powers, people flocked to be near Him. They longed to find Him, wait in line or in a big crowd to get close to Him in order to be healed. And usually Jesus’ physical healing always came after a spiritual healing and recognition of belief in Him. We too, then, should be clamoring to wait in line at Reconciliation to get that spiritual healing our souls so desperately need.

I was greatly encouraged by the chapter on this Sacrament in the Dynamic Catholic book called Rediscover Catholicism to return to regular Confession. Mainly because the author, Matthew Kelly, explained that one of the benefits of this Sacrament can be to establish a relationship with a confessor. Most saints had a regular confessor who helped them grow in their spirituality. By choosing the same priest each time you go, you develop a relationship whereby you can set goals to overcome repetitive sinful vices, share your progress and learn how to grow in the opposite virtues. A good Confession doesn’t have to be with a stranger and in embarrassing quickness. It can become a healthy relationship of mentoring, in a comforting, trusting scenario that you know will be kept confidential.

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Telling our sins out loud, while not easy, is so healthy and good for our souls. It brings peace in a way that telling God in the silence of our hearts can’t do. #catholicmom

God gladly forgives all of our sins, whether we confess them through a priest or not. He knows what is in our hearts at all times and loves to extend His mercy. But telling our sins out loud, while not easy, is so healthy and good for our souls. It brings such relief and peace in a way that telling God in the silence of our hearts can’t do.

Lent is just beginning. Make a point of attending the Sacrament of Reconciliation before Good Friday gets here. Feel that peace and love inside so you can truly celebrate that Jesus died on that cross for YOUR sins.

"For [the Lord] is good, for his love for Israel endures forever." (Ezra 3:11)

Copyright 2022 Colleen Mallette
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