Well, we are nothing but poor, wretched sinners. We are not worthy of God’s mercy. Why take offense at that? We are born without sanctifying grace - which we gain through Baptism - and due to the *three concupiscences * we will always fall, and if the sin is mortal we lose sanctifying grace again.
That is why we know that there is another gift, called “actual” or “auxiliating” grace, which God grants us temporarily in order that we may be able to repent…it is truly through His infinite mercy that we are saved.
Why are we not condemned from the beginning? Or when we fall again? Thanks to Jesus Christ, Who came among us, took over us the full burden of sin, and experienced the ineffable sorrows of the Passion. That is why we can receive sanctifying grace again and again: through the mercy and by the merits of Jesus. Of our own, we did not do anything to deserve it - which is why nobody is worthy of God.
While when I am offended by that statement I accuse myself of my inclination to pride, I think you are instead moved by your great love for God, that love that makes us call Him “Abba’, dad!”
St. John of the Cross considered Himself a terrible sinner and repeatedly stated his unworthiness…yet he wrote wonderful poems of love, one of which says:
Where have You hidden Yourself,
And abandoned me in my groaning, O my Beloved?
Oh! who can heal me?
Give me at once Yourself,
Send me no more
A messenger
Who cannot tell me what I wish.
Reveal Your presence,
And let the vision and Your beauty kill me.
Behold the malady
Of love is incurable
Except in Your presence and before Your face.
Love truly divinizes us! For as sinners we are truly nothing, but as souls in love, we are the mystical Bride…
I have found very edifying the reading “
The Spiritual Combat” by Fr. Lorenzo Scupoli:
And this will be made clear to thee by the effect produced on thy mind by a fall. If thou art so saddened and disquieted thereby as to be tempted to despair of making progress or doing good, it is a sure sign that thy trust is in self and not in God. For he who has any large measure of self-distrust and trust in God feels neither surprise, nor despondency, nor bitterness, when he falls; for he knows that this has arisen from his own weakness and want of trust in God. On the contrary, being, rendered thereby more distrustful of self, more humbly condent in God, detesting above all things his fault and the unruly passions which have occasioned it, and mourning with a quiet, deep, and patient sorrow over his offense against God, he pursues his enterprise, and follows after his enemies …]
When you have been wounded by sin …] Turn to God with a great and humble confidence saying: “See, O Master, what I am able to do. When I rely on my own strength, I commit nothing but sins.” Meditating on this, recognize the extent of your humiliation and express to our Lord your sorrow for the offense committed. With an unperturbed heart, indict your vicious passions, especially the one that has occasioned your fall, and confess: “O Lord, I would not have stopped at this had not Your goodness restrained me.”
Place yourself in the merciful arms of God, and plunge into your usual duties, as though nothing had happened. …] This will dismay your enemy because it is pleasing to God. The devil will be thrown into confusion, baffled by one he has so often overcome.
The way to recover this peace is to forget, for the moment, your fault and to concentrate on the ineffable goodness of God and His burning desire to pardon the gravest sinners.
Though grieved when he falls into a fault, (the humble man who trusts in God) is neither surprised nor disquieted; for he knows that his own misery and weakness, already clearly
manifest to himself by the light of truth, have brought all this upon him.
