College Chaplain

The power of God’s forgiveness.

Does God forgive us our sins?

Of course, yes, he not only forgives, but he also forgets. Both the forgiving and the forgetting restores us to grace and places us among His most cherished children. God's love for us is beyond our imagination. This love moves Him to forgive our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. 

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most beautiful Gospel Lessons. No other parable adequately portrays the depth and mysticism of the Mercy and love of God towards His prodigal sons. Of all Jesus' parables, this one is the most richly detailed, powerfully dramatic, and intensely personal. It's full of emotion-ranging from sadness and triumph to a sense of shock and finally to an unsettling wish for more closure. Jesus told this story in response to the accusation of the scribes and the pharisee that He was eating and drinking with sinners.

Jesus corrects them by articulating in an entertaining way how much God loves his people, especially those who stray, and that love is an irrational love by our standards. Or perhaps best articulated by St. John's Gospel, "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that those who believe in him might not perish but might have eternal life." The incarnation is God visiting the households of a whole world full of people who need repentance. 

“The younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living.” The story begins with the Son deciding to leave his father. He had undoubtedly envisioned how great it would be when he took his inheritance and went away to that far country — and it was great — for a while! But he was deceived, and it eventually led to his downfall. He ended up broke and in the pig slop, longing to be fed with the food the swine were eating.

Interestingly, the father appears to be eagerly watching for and anticipating his Son's return. As the text puts it: "But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him". Similarly, God greatly desires us to repent our sins and return to Him. This Parable illustrates, in the best way possible, the highly merciful nature of God and how He sits in wait for our return to him when we offend him. This Parable must have been on Pope Francis' mind when he declared categorically that the name of God is mercy and that Jesus Christ is "Misericordiae Vultus", "The Face of Mercy," he is 'the face' of His Father's mercy and calls us to be "Be merciful like the Father (LK 6:36). Furthermore, He is “longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). He “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

It will help us to notice the stress laid on mercy and on the love of God, who never tires of forgiving. He forgave the Israelites when they gravely offended him; he forgave the prodigal Son who left him for a loose living when he returned to him. In Exodus 32, Moses interceded on behalf of the Israelites, and God forgave them, while in Luke 15, the prodigal son 'came back to his senses, made a conversion of heart, had true contrition, and God forgave him out of his mercy. God's mercy is boundless and ever abiding, but we need on our part to do something. Sincere contrition is needful; Psalm 51:17 tells us that God will never turn his back on a broken spirit, a crushed and contrite heart. We need to repent from our ways, return to our senses, and return to God, who will forgive us. The prophecy of Joel 2:12-13 exhorts us, "Turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting and weeping and mourning: rend our hearts, and not your garments, convert to the Lord your God. He is gracious and merciful, patient and full of compassion, and repents from evil".

Today, beloved friends, may we be reminded never to underestimate the power of God's forgiveness towards us. If we come to terms with our sinfulness and realize our need for God's mercy and forgiveness and say to ourselves, 'I will leave this place and go back to my Father' (Lk. 15:18), God does welcome us back. It is high time we left those ill-stricken places we are at the moment and occasions of sin behind us and returned hurriedly to God, who is always ready to welcome us back into his fold, not as enslaved people, but as sons in the Son. It is never too late to begin the journey; we can start where we are by using the sacrament of Reconciliation. Friends in Christ, no sin outweighs the mercy of God, let us come to him genuinely contrite of our sins, and he will welcome us back home.

So yes, God does forgive us and forget our sins, but we have to make an effort to return to Him. Make a move and be welcomed home again!!