Trust in Unfathomable Mercy

A few days ago, I talked about how the world might view what Christ did for us and what we do for Him as folly.  Now we take what some cannot grasp even one step further.  This Son of God, Who underwent a horrible death for our sins and then rose triumphantly, offers even the most hardened sinners a pass, if you will.  If it sounds outrageous that by going to confession and Holy Communion on one given Sunday we could earn pardon of all temporal punishment,  we have not trusted in His mercy.  Sometimes we can't see past our own noses.  We try to assign to God the same flaws and weaknesses that make us human.

God can't possibly forgive me for this.


I've been away too long.


I feel like a hypocrite


How can one day of being faithful save me from what I deserve?


If I can get this indulgence today, why do I need to bother going to Mass again?


We forget so quickly those words spoken by the priest over the fire at the Easter Vigil.

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever!


We can never grasp with our heads what is best understood by our hearts.  We think of all the times in our lives when we have been disappointed by someone who said they loved us.  Maybe it's a spouse who was unfaithful.  Maybe it was a child battling an addiction.  Perhaps we are the person someone trusted in, and we shattered their faith in us by doing something sinful and human.  I remember once being assigned a difficult task at the ad agency where I worked right out of college.  I had no idea how I was going to accomplish this seemingly impossible task, but I recall very clearly saying "Just trust me."

In response, my boss said to me: " It really worries me when someone says that."  He had been let down in the past by people who did not mean what they said, and being a little on the paranoid side to begin with did not help.  How many times in our own lives have been desolate over a situation when someone we love takes us by the shoulders, urges us to look at them and says to us: "Trust me.  This will be ok.  We will fix this.  This will get better. You will be all right."

We all have those moments.  We may not always have that go-to person, but we will always have Christ.  The Feast of Divine Mercy is about two seemingly-simple words: trust and mercy.  To comprehend them as God does, however, is not so simple.  The only way we can begin to understand them is by abandoning ourselves completely to Him.  He is more than willing to take this on for us, to the point where He condescends to beg us to turn to Him in all of our needs and to be reassured that there is no sin greater than the depths of His mercy.

How do we return the favor?  By seeking reconciliation with those in our lives that we can't forgive or maybe that can't forgive us.  By not giving in to despair.  By putting everything in His hands and trusting that what comes out of any given situation, though we can not see it at the time, is what God wills for us and what will be for our spiritual well-being.

You may not believe that someone's private revelation is worthy of a feast day.  But you cannot dismiss the unfathomable mercy of Jesus Christ and His desire that we put all our trust in Him.