The second reading this Sunday is full of common sense and hope. St. Paul states the facts, “God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” His reason for hope is “if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, once reconciled, will we be saved by his life.” It is a sound conclusion, if God gave so much to save us, we can trust that He will continue to provide us with the grace of salvation.
St. Paul is praising God’s unfailing love and mercy. However, he is not encouraging us to live without responsibility to the Gospel. Oddly and too frequently, our response to God’s unconditional love is to take advantage of it. Rather than reciprocate His love, we erroneously see it as an opportunity to act without consequence. I do not imagine that most of us callously calculate our sins as an acceptable abuse of God’s mercy. However, in practice, we are all guilty of it.
God’s greatest attribute is His mercy, and so among the devil’s greatest desires is to pervert our understanding of it. He tries to convince us of one of two extremes, “despair” or “presumption” (CCC 2091-92).
The first is that you are beyond God’s mercy. Your sins are so bad, that God cannot forgive you.
The second extreme is that God is a permissive parent and there is no reason to avoid sin or conform yourself to the demands of the Gospel.
These are both false. God’s forgiveness cannot be exhausted, but we must also cooperate with the grace of salvation.
In the readings from Exodus, God has just saved the Israelites from Egypt and is about to give them the Ten Commandments. He says, “if you obey me completely and keep my covenant, you will be my treasured possession…” (Ex 19:5). For the Israelites to be in right relationship with God, He requires their participation.
Jesus reaffirms this for us when He says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (Jn 14:15). Our reception of the Gospel necessitates a conversion of the way we live.
This is not a restrictive transaction, it is relational. In a transaction I do this and I get that. Think of a vending machine or Santa Claus. Our motivation is our personal gain. Whereas, in a genuine and healthy relationship, the driving motivation is the good of the other. All that God has given us — life, salvation, and even the Commandments, are ordered to our greatest good which is communion with Him and our neighbor. Our affirmative response to these gifts is essential and requires a total gift of self back to God.
When a husband and wife marry, their promise of fidelity is meant for all times. A spouse would not accept a conditional promise, such as: I will be faithful most days of the week except Fridays when I go to the club. It would be disingenuous. The self-gift of marriage is total and unconditional. So too, a sincere Christian life precludes the ability to embrace sin as an acceptable path. We should never be permissive of sin in our lives or in the world.
It is true that, this side of eternity, we are unable to be sinless, but that does not permit us to ally ourselves with it. Sin always robs us of true happiness by separating us from our genuine good. Jesus says, “everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.” (Jn 8:34).
With God’s grace constantly renewed in us through the sacraments, we must struggle against sin and know that when we fail, His overabundant mercy is there to restore us. So, “let us hold unwaveringly to our confession that gives us hope, for he who made the promise is trustworthy.” (Heb 10:23).
