3 Strikes and you're out!

3 Strikes and you’re out!

In 1994 the Violent Crime Control Act was begun to control the release of criminals who continued to commit felonies without any concern for the innocent public.  The theme was used indiscriminately as in baseball and other uses to make a point.  

What about God and his watchful eye on sinners who even after absolution are still committing the same old sin?  Here is a dichotomy to what man had always thought about sin and asking for mercy.  “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him?  As many as seven times?”  (Mt 18: 21).  Left alone the accepted answer would seem to be yes, since Matthew deals with multiples of seven because of the Jews to whom his Gospel was written for.  But, Jesus wasn’t concerned with the Old Testament idea of keeping in sync with the law.  His response is so much more than a 3 strikes and you’re out  theory.  Jesus answered Peter with; I say to you, “not seven times but seventy-seven times.”  (Mt 18: 22).  It is not a mathematical premise but an actuality of an endless occurrence of mercy is our intent.  

When asking what about God and his watchful eye is just an-exclamation without merit.  As many times that anyone sins against us and asks for forgiveness, we are required to forgive him.   This will not solve the problems of society and criminal repetition of a felonious assault. 

However, we who believe in God and his merciful love for all of his creation in humanity must realize that his creatures whom he loves beyond their weaknesses wants them all to be with him eternally.  Therefore he simply expects us to seek his forgiveness no matter how often we seem to fail in doing right.  

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy and Sister Faustina to whom Christ appeared asking the faithful to pray to his Sacred Heart and seek the forgiveness of the sins of the world.   God has not forgotten why he sent his Son to the Cross for the sin of the whole world.  Man has not yet accepted his endless mercy and is still making an effortless intervention to wake up people  so they may understand his tireless manner to grant forgiveness to each of us no matter how often we fall away from his grace.  St. Paul tells us, “Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.”  (Rom 5: 20).

Punishment on those who end  in hell is not there from the hand of God.  God does not condemn anyone.  In fact Christ, in the person of Jesus, did not come to condemn sinners.

“For God did not send the Son into the world to judge and condemn but to save the world through him.”  (Jn 3: 17).  Those in hell are there by their own choice and have up to their last breath to seek God’s mercy and find forgiveness.  We are told that those in hell are there because of their hate for God.   This displeases God since he does not withhold his love from any of his creatures, but there are some, who like Satan as an angel, wanted what he could not have; a divine nature.  Their final choice is an absence from God forever.  

Ralph B. Hathaway