A caution from Archbishop Chaput: dishonest mercy helps no one

[Ender]

These two events alone show the mercy God has towards us, regardless of our ability to repent or not.

I would like you to be clear on this point: is repentance necessary for us to receive mercy? I think this is a yes or no question.

Ender

 

[LongingSoul]

Romans 2:1-4

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 2 Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3 So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

 

[LongingSoul]

St Faustina…

“At the hour of their death, I defend as My own glory every soul that will say this chaplet; or when others say it for a dying person, the indulgence is the same. **When this chaplet is said by the bedside of a dying person, God’s anger is placated, unfathomable mercy envelops the soul, and the very depths of My tender mercy are moved for the sake of the sorrowful Passion of My Son” **(Diary, 811).

Mercy is a gratuitous gift of God and we are led to cooperate with the grace of that mercy.

 

[Ender]

But then, the Church has to provide an avenue for those who are contrite, to receive Holy Communion.

Contrition requires the intent not to repeat the sin one is confessing. If the person intends to continue the sin, there is no contrition. This is the problem.

Also, keep this in mind when you tell a couple who were divorced and have been happily married and have had children together, for the past 40 years, that they’re living in mortal sin and think about how Jesus would treat them ?

Think about this for a second: if it is true that a couple who remarries after a divorce is living in a state of grave sin, how does it become less of a sin because it has continued for 40 years instead of just 40 days? How is sin dissipated by time when the actions that were sinful from the beginning continue?

Are you suggesting that Jesus should have modified his assertion that “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery” to end with “unless the adultery continues for 40 years”? How does the length of the marriage change the nature of the act?

Ender

 

[Brendan]

]

Mercy is a gratuitous gift of God and we are led to cooperate with the grace of that mercy.

But it is only in cooperation with that Mercy, that the Mercy is received.

That cooperation is called repentance. The Grace to do so is also offer to all, but not all accept that Grace either.

 

[LongingSoul]

But it is only in cooperation with that Mercy, that the Mercy is received.

That cooperation is called repentance. The Grace to do so is also offer to all, but not all accept that Grace either.

I really think that the above words don’t convey the understanding of mercy that has developed through St Faustina, St JPII and especially now Pope Francis. We’re being encouraged to believe Gods mercy engages us before we engage it. Pope Francis talks about the Church as a hospital a lot and when I think of Faustina relating to us about the ‘door of mercy’, I just envisage that door leading into a hospital.

That’s quite ironic because St Ignatius identifies the touch of Gods mercy prior to his conversion … within a hospital setting. He was a wounded soldier and now invalid in hospital when he first played around with discernment. He found that contemplating on different things like the lady friend he was having an affair with, while being happy in the moment, left him empty and bereft of joy. Alternately, contemplating other things that seemed less satisfying in the moment, filled him with hope and purpose and joy going forward. Consolation and desolation. It was as a result of that experience that he found his way to contemplating the gospels and the rest is history.

The Church becoming a field hospital of mercy necessarily requires a change in language and approach to ‘the wounded’ out there. We can’t be discerning about who we let in in times of ‘war’. Everyone deserves treatment if they walk through that door… and they will get better through the medicine of grace.

 

[St_Francis]

Of course those people of faith who have not repented and are living in the state of mortal sin should not receive Holy Communion.

But then, the Church has to provide an avenue for those who are contrite, to receive Holy Communion.

Also, keep this in mind when you tell a couple who were divorced and have been happily married and have had children together, for the past 40 years, that they’re living in mortal sin and think about how Jesus would treat them ?

Go and sin no more?

This is what Pope Francis is mulling over.

Jim

D&R people do have a path if the first marriage is determined to have been invalid. True, this takes some time and effort, but not an inordinate amount, and if the first marriage lasted only a short time, and the second a long time, then it seems like there is a greater chance that the first was indeed invalid.

Consider the situation of homosexual people who believe they are married to each other. There is no way they can resolve the conflict between their continuing that aspect of their relationship or receiving tge Eucharist except by choosing one or the other.

What it comes down to is whether a person is willing to give up mortal sin for the Savior Who redeemed them, isn’t it?

What Christ said was, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (St Luke 14:26)

 

[Brendan]

I really think that the above words don’t convey the understanding of mercy that has developed through St Faustina, St JPII and especially now Pope Francis. We’re being encouraged to believe Gods mercy engages us before we engage it.

Of course it is. Grace is all. We can do nothing without it, we cannot come to Faith, we cannot even Love without Grace… But we do have to accept it. The means of accepting that Grace, of acting on it, is repentance.

There is no acceptance of that Grace without Repentance. That is really the core of the Gospel, it is a call to Repentance so that we might benefit of the Mercy offered to us at the Cross.

The Church becoming a field hospital of mercy necessarily requires a change in language and approach to ‘the wounded’ out there. We can’t be discerning about who we let in in times of ‘war’. Everyone deserves treatment if they walk through that door… and they will get better through the medicine of grace.

And all who walk through the door are offered treatment. The first step of treatment is to acknowledge the disease and wish it would be gone. Treatment cannot be a desire to keep the disease.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I would like you to be clear on this point: is repentance necessary for us to receive mercy? I think this is a yes or no question.

Ender

No, God’s mercy comes as He wills, not as we will.

See Jesus appearance to St Paul as he was on his way to persecute Christians.
God had mercy on Paul while he was yet a sinner.

God also had Mary conceived without sin, in anticipation of Christ redemption, which even she required.

Did the Blessed Mother who was born without sin, repent ?

Jim

 

[JimR-OCDS]

What Christ said was, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (St Luke 14:26)

So you hate your father and mother ?

Of course literal interpretation would mandate this, but its not what Jesus meant for us to do.

Jim

 

[Brendan]

No, God’s mercy comes as He wills, not as we will.

See Jesus appearance to St Paul as he was on his way to persecute Christians.
God had mercy on Paul while he was yet a sinner.

Paul had the option to reject it.

Did the Blessed Mother who was born without sin, repent ?

Mary, like the first Eve, had the option to reject her gift as well.

 

[Ender]

I really think that the above words don’t convey the understanding of mercy that has developed through St Faustina, St JPII and especially now Pope Francis. We’re being encouraged to believe Gods mercy engages us before we engage it.

Whatever one might believe has been implied by Pope Francis, what was clearly stated by JPII is this: mercy requires repentance.*On the part of man only a lack of good will can limit {mercy}, a lack of readiness to be converted and to repent, in other words persistence in obstinacy, opposing grace and truth, especially in the face of the witness of the cross and resurrection of Christ.

**In no passage of the Gospel message does forgiveness, or mercy as its source, mean indulgence towards evil, towards scandals, towards injury or insult.

**It is clear that penitents living in a habitual state of serious sin and who do not intend to change their situation cannot validly receive absolution. *(Dives in Misericordia)
Any interpretation of what others might have implied that conflicts with what JPII explicitly stated cannot be considered accurate. Still less can anything be accepted that conflicts with what is clearly stated in the catechism.
1864 There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit.
Ender

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Paul had the option to reject it.

Mary, like the first Eve, had the option to reject her gift as well.

They had the option to reject it, but God showed His mercy first and they accepted it

Jim

 

[LongingSoul]

Of course it is. Grace is all. We can do nothing without it, we cannot come to Faith, we cannot even Love without Grace… But we do have to accept it. The means of accepting that Grace, of acting on it, is repentance.

There is no acceptance of that Grace without Repentance. That is really the core of the Gospel, it is a call to Repentance so that we might benefit of the Mercy offered to us at the Cross.

And all who walk through the door are offered treatment. The first step of treatment is to acknowledge the disease and wish it would be gone. Treatment cannot be a desire to keep the disease.

Whether you acknowledge it or not, I defer to Pope Francis astute observation that some convey the sacraments as ‘rewards for the good’ and mercy as ‘earned’ and the evidence of that error is exposed by legalism. Repentance is experienced differently at the different stages of faith formation hence a lessening in the Church over time, of severe consequences based only on the law. We no longer kill schismatics and heretics. In fact, outside of a particular type of lay Catholic, the words schismatic and heretic are not even used in Church terminology to address sins anymore for example.

In addressing marriage over 2000 years the understanding of what constituted an invalid marriage has developed to reflect Gods mercy such as the work of an official marriage tribunal and the accommodation of Pauline and Petrine privilege and then the acknowledgement that psychological states can affect a persons capacity to consent. Some theologians including Pope Benedict are bothered by the obvious deficit of faith in a person partaking in the sacrament of marriage and how that can be seen in time to blight the womb of a Christian marriage.

Change/development is not a sudden strange phenomenon in the Church and there’s a palpable urgency in the Church to see our mission in the light of Gods mercy as revealed primarily by Jesus dictations to Faustina. She wasn’t reinventing the wheel by her diaries. She was giving us Christs teaching for our listening and learning and growing.

Repeating the Catechism description like a mantra with no life in it, closed to all further understanding, is not the proper response to this urgent discussion of the mercy of God.

 

[Ender]

They had the option to reject it, but God showed His mercy first and they accepted it

Mercy is available to us before we repent, but we do not receive it without repentance. We are not treated mercifully if we are not contrite. A lack of contrition constitutes a rejection of the mercy that has been offered.

Ender

 

[ProdigalSun]

God didn’t demand repentance when He decided to bring salvation to the world of sinners through Jesus Christ.

His mercy came prior to Jesus call for repentance.

Jim

Are you saying that we don’t need to repent of our sins in order to be saved?

 

[ProdigalSun]

A person who has received the gift of faith and refuses to repent, is in grave sin.

That being said, a person who has not received the gift of faith, although lives in sin, does not know how to repent.

Remember, Jesus came to St Paul before he repented.

God gave the Blessed Mother the gift of being conceived without sin, in anticipation of Jesus redemptive act.

These two events alone show the mercy God has towards us, regardless of our ability to repent or not.

Jim

Here it sounds like you are talking about Invincible ignorance. This certainly is not the normal means of salvation and of course God will judge all of our hearts to see who is worthy even the ones who have repented.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Mercy is available to us before we repent, but we do not receive it without repentance. We are not treated mercifully if we are not contrite. A lack of contrition constitutes a rejection of the mercy that has been offered.

Ender

The fact that God offers his mercy before we accept it, shows the level of mercy which is beyond our understanding. In his mercy He gives us grace in order that we can come to Him with contrite hearts.

Do you show mercy to a person who has done wrong, but has yet to repent ? Or do you wait for them to repent the wrong they’ve done ?

Jim

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Here it sounds like you are talking about Invincible ignorance. This certainly is not the normal means of salvation and of course God will judge all of our hearts to see who is worthy even the ones who have repented.

Using your own handle, in the story of the Prodigal Son, did the father wait for his son to repent, or did he run out to him the moment he saw him coming home ?

Jim

 

[clem456]

Thank God we have Christ’s Mystical Body (aka Church) to clear up murkiness, doubt, and distraction.

GRACE AND JUSTIFICATION
…
1989 The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting justification in accordance with Jesus’ proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."38 Moved by grace, man **turns toward **God and away from sin, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. "Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the sanctification and **renewal of **the interior man.39

1990 Justification detaches man from sin which contradicts the love of God, and purifies his heart of sin. Justification follows upon God’s merciful initiative of offering forgiveness. It reconciles man with God. It frees from the enslavement to sin, and it heals.

1991 Justification is at the same time **the acceptance of **God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Righteousness (or “justice”) here means the rectitude of divine love. With justification, faith, hope, and charity are poured into our hearts, and obedience to the divine will is granted us.

1992 Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life:40

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.41
1993 Justification **establishes cooperation between **God’s grace and man’s freedom. On man’s part it is expressed by **the assent of faith **to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent:

Begs the question, if Christ himself exhorts us to repent and believe, what exactly is the problem here?