Despair and Presumption

A nonresponse to the offer of God’s mercy can take either of two directions: despair or presumption. Both are forms of violation of the virtue of hope, by which we are to reach out to receive God’s proffered forgiveness and salvation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church spells out this theology very succinctly but clearly:

By despair, man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins. Despair is contrary to God’s goodness, to his justice – for the Lord is faithful to his promises – land to his mercy.

There are two kinds of presumption. Either man presumes upon his own capacities (hoping to be able to save himself without help from on high), or he presumes upon God’s almighty power or his mercy (hoping to obtain his forgiveness without conversion and glory without merit). (CCC #2091-2092)

Souls who really understand and appreciate God’s mercy could never fall into either despair or presumption. They would never ask how much does God forget? They would see that what we forget about God’s love is more to the point.

Let’s never forget that our God is in the washing business, not the whitewashing business. Our past failings are not varnished; they’re vanished. And as he reviews each sin of ours, the Lord doesn’t “rub it in”; he rubs it out. “I am He who blots out your transgressions,…and I will not remember your sins” (Isaiah 43:25). “I will cleanse them from al the guild of their sin” (Jeremiah 33:8).

Paul preached in Antioch, “[T]hrough this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you ; by this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all….sins: (Acts 13:38-39). John reiterated that proclamation of universal sin remission: “[T]he blood of Jesus….cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). That’s all sin, all guilt. His “forgiving and forgetting” penetrates and cleans every tiny crevice of our being. I’ve heard the analogy that man is born broken and the grace of God is the glue for his mending.

This forgiveness is so universal that it includes even seldom-recalled, long-standing and deep-rooted transgressions that fester in the soul. “Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love…Lord!” (Psalm 25:7). “When deed of iniquity overwhelm us mind-splintering guilt], you forgive our transgressions” (Psalm 65:3).

Our heavenly Father is so deeply in love with each one of us that he gives us every opportunity to be drawn to him. As Saint Augustine phrased it, “God loves each one of us as if there were only one of us.”*

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace. (Hebrews 4:15-16)

That periscope is reminiscent of the Prodigal Son’s return to his father’s house after a period of dissolute profligacy. “I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands,” he said (Luke 15:19). Instead his father feted him as the guest of honor at a family celebration! The older brother regarded the celebration as wrong, but the father set him right. How often we too underestimate the paternal mercy flowing from “the throne of grace.”

If God’s restorative mercy seems to be this right, it has to be wrong, right?

Wrong!

*Saint Augustine, quoted at www.brainyquote.com

This excerpt is from the book The Awesome Mercy of God, by John H. Hampsch,C.M.F., originally published by Servant Books. It and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/visual materials can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408.