How can we explain God to those who never knew Forgiveness?

What we are is who we are. Look beyond our vision and find a meaning for the image we were made in, Fall asleep in weakness and awaken in the bliss of God’s Love. (Gn 1: 26).

Science tells us that the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old with an uncertainty of 200 million years. To many this estimate means very little since they cannot ascertain even their own abilities to reach life one day at a time. However, the very essence of life begins with an unknown realization that molds and creates this very cluster of organs, blood and the pathways within to rush through this life-giving nurturing element within what we call a human body.

God did not make humans with flaws that need to be corrected. Everything and everyone is without the sin of Adam. Sin is from an evil that is not tangible, rather from the absence of goodness that man falls into by weakness and disbelief. Enter the Holy Spirit:

“Because we are dead or at least wounded through sin, the first effect of the gift of love is the forgiveness of our sins. The companion of the Holy Spirit in the Church restores to the baptized the divine likeness lost through sin.” (CCC 734).

“Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise, led back to the kingdom of heaven, and adopted as children, given confidence to call God “Father” and to share in Christ’s grace, called children of light and given a share in eternal glory.” (Footnote to CCC 736). St Basil.

What does this mean to the one who never knew forgiveness? All that involves the mysteries of the universe, the mystery of humanity, and the deepest mystery of God forgiving us for our sinfulness is the exact truth of the existence of the only divinity that brings eternal love into this endless entity of total existence made for you and me.

Praying to a God we can’t see can become an indescribable search for understanding, yet we cannot fathom the mystery of the universe we can only view, yet there it is. The same goes for accepting a merciful gesture from one who cares deeply for us without question is real. Yet, here again it is there for you and me.

A finite mind can only look at an expanding universe in wonder and awe. This same finiteness must also live in an awesome understanding that no entity can take God’s forgiveness away and we find the total meaning of love.

“I love you, O my God, and my only desire is to love you until the last breath of my life. I love you, O my infinitely lovable God, and I would rather die loving you, than to live without loving you. I love you, Lord, and the only grace I ask is to love you eternally…My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love you, I want my heart to repeat it to you as often as I draw breath.” (the words of the Cure’ of Ars St John Vanney).

Love from God is the complete understanding we search for in the morning and as we fall asleep. When we feel this forgiveness, not a physical touch, but within the heart of a sinner, we shall then become the one God lives within.

Ralph B. Hathaway