To: scapularkid8, grandfather
I don’t know how it happened, but I just formed this idea in my head that somehow when I do something wrong, even by accident, that God doesn’t love me…
When you say you do something wrong, I assume you mean you commit some sin. Sin is evil. When we sin we do things that are evil. God is good, so when we do evil things that are opposed to God’s nature, we separate ourselves from God and from His love.
God’s merciful love will never abandon us in this life, but we can willfully separate ourselves from Him. His love can still find a way to us, but we must desire it and accept it.
But this separation from God occurs only through mortal sin, not venial sin. Mortal sin requires knowing (or firmly believing) that what we want to do is seriously evil, and then doing it intentionally. Mortal sin “kills” our soul, by causing it to lose its participation in God’s life.
Venial sin does not “kill” the soul, but it leaves a kind of blemish or wound. Of course venial sin IS evil; it offends our infinitely loving God. But it leave us as His children, not separated from Him.
If we do something partly “by accident” it may be only a venial sin. If God knows that it is truly unintentional and excusable, it is not a sin at all.
For all sins the act of contrition expresses what we must do: “firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life”.
Not caring about our venial sins any more is most likely a mortal sin. At some point(s) we must have deliberately silenced our conscience when it told us we were falling away from God.
Love is not a thing that you have in store like money that sits in your pocket inactive and you can put your hand in you pocket and feel it and know you can use it whenever you need it. Rather it is like the blood in your veins, constantly beinging pumped through your body keeping you alive. It is your spiritual life blood, but it does not come from your heart. It comes from God and when we do evil we stop its flow and we die. This does not mean God does not love us. We are the ones who make it stop.
Everyone who asks for mercy receives it. Everyone who prefers sin to love also gets what they want. We are free to choose spiritual life or death.
When we are in the state of mortal sin, God doesn’t just wait for us to ask for His mercy (although it is true we must ask). I think God follows us in our lives with His love, trying to draw us back to Him (illustrated in the poem the “Hound of Heaven”, or in the lives of some saints - e.g. St. Augustine). From one point of view it is not we who ask for mercy, it is God who asks us “won’t you return to My love?”. God is there, with His love and mercy, at the death bed of the most evil man. How great is God’s love to NEVER abandon a man all others despise, until the man’s death seals his final abandonment of God.
HOWEVER we should RUSH to ask for His forgiveness and mercy, and for His grace to keep us from sin. If we presumptuously dilly-dally in sin, thinking “He’ll forgive me later”, we offend God, kill our soul, risk our salvation and destroy our happiness even now.
But by knowing how much God loves you, you will better learn to sorrow for your sin: “How can I love so little a God who loves me so much?”
Christ’s death on the cross is the best proof that God ALWAYS loves us without measure. He didn’t say “they’ll get what they obviously want”. He said “Father forgive them, they do not know what they do”.
Jesus asks Saint Peter three times, “Peter, do you love me”. He asks you the same question. How do we know whether we love God? Here is what Saint John says. “The love of God consists in this, that we keep His commandments”. Here is what Jesus says, “If a man loves me he will keep my commands”. If our consciences convict us of sin we know we do not love God, and we are all sinful. Faith tells us that even though we do not love God in this state, He still loves us and wants to redeem us. This gives rise to hope and we call out to God to help us love Him, to give us the grace to repent, obey, love and live in holiness.
Disobeying a commandment by a venial sin means that you don’t love God PERFECTLY. Loving God is keeping His commandments. But in this life we don’t do either of those things perfectly. Christ’s first commandment is “Love God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, your whole strength”. But such love should grow and grow, until it is perfected in heaven. We are not perfect now.
