English
EspañolGod never ceases to be a father. He is always ready to forgive, to show mercy, to lift you. He is not your father based on your merits, nor does he cease to be so depending on the evil you have committed. He is your father because God, himself, is that good. Every morning he comes to meet you. You are still in time to experience this! It is never too late!
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“There is a need “to avoid judgements which do not take into account the complexity of various situations” and “to be attentive, by necessity, to how people experience distress because of their condition.” (The Joy of Love, n,296) “No one can be condemned forever because that is not the logic of the Gospel!” (The Joy of Love, n.297) ” I am in agreement with the many Synod Fathers who observed that “the baptized who are divorced and civilly remarried need to be more fully integrated into Christian communities in the variety of ways possible while avoiding any occasion of scandal. The logic of integration is the key to their pastoral care.” (The Joy of Love, n.299)
Commentary
One of the most terrible evils is inner loneliness, emptiness, and anguish. And one of the most corrosive worms is the one that tells us, inside, that it is too late, that everything is useless, and that our mistakes and missteps irreversibly condemn us. While causing us to despair, this demonic worm separates us from God, who, like a good and faithfully loving Father, waits for us, without ever faltering, to accompany us and lift us.
How good is it for those who believe themselves to be alone and condemned to become aware that the Church´s doors are open to them? I know of some who had never practiced their faith, but after some time and due to an experience of some sort, want to come closer to God and take the first step.
What a consolation it gives them to be able to enter the Church, to attend Mass, perhaps receive the sacraments, with the proper discernment of each concrete situation! What a great discovery to know that God, despite everything, was still there waiting for them, waiting for each singular person. In such circumstances, they immediately felt the interior companionship, the tender light, and the warm presence of the Spirit of God.
At that moment in which one is touched by grace, all the walls one had built for oneself fall. It is there when, without fear of rejection or the anguish of being made of clay, comes true repentance for the evil one has done, and the good one has failed to do. Even if you can no longer reverse time, or things can no longer return to the way they previously were, something quite profound changes in your life. The rising and straightening up commences gradually, in doses that are possible to handle, perhaps small ones. The first symptom of this inner resurrection is the inner birth of the will to improve situations with others – starting with family members – and even in a small dose, by putting good where before there was only evil.
Whoever decides to walk this path receives an intimate experience of the company of the Trinity: that of the faithful, persevering and merciful love of the Father, that of the creative inspiration of the Spirit capable of infusing life into you and renewing what is withering, and the graces and strengths of Jesus Christ that sustain you in the face of the inevitable resistance, obstacle, relapses, and discouragements.
