The Spot Remover for Sin-Soiled Souls

As a youngster I thought that it was practically a law that every pet dog must be named Spot. That misconception was probably derived from the fact that all the dogs in our neighborhood had that name. In view of that bit of childhood history, I probably had a better-than-average laugh response to a TV comedian’s quip that he put spot remover on his dog and the little cur disappeared!

I’m sure you can see the follow-up remark coming, but I have to affirm it anyway (the maxim of stand-up comedians: “Monologues go better with epilogues”). The Almighty’s unique “spot remover” is, of course, his quick forgiveness. Sin-removing is the Lord’s standard response to any heartfelt utterance of the acme of all petitions: “Forgive us our Trespasses.”

Someone, probably a clever televangelist, coined a quirky definition for the virtue of trusting in God’s merciful love: he called it the “bathtub of the soul.” A bath or shower restores a soiled body with an awareness of refreshing cleanliness; a sense of the absolute cleanliness of one’s soul is even more refreshing and delightful. All the faces of trust, such as trust in God’s answer to prayer, trust in his provision for one’s financial security, trust in healing from the Lord and so on are all ultimately forms of dependence on God’s mercy (as I explain in my book Pathways of Trust: 101 Shortcuts to Holiness). Yet there’s no form of trust more fulfilling than trusting in God’s mercy to cleanse us totally from sin.

That’s why Jesus, in a apparition to Saint Faustina, commissioned her to propagate devotion to Divine Mercy through the devout use of that simple and trenchant ejaculation, “Jesus, I trust in you.” In affirming trust in his forgiveness – the kind of trust Jesus responds to most eagerly – the petitioner implicitly affirms trust in his mercy in all of its many other expressions. The devotion to the Divine Mercy is meaningless without trust.

The human conscience performs a double sin-related function: our “prior conscience” tells us to avoid sin, and our “posterior conscience” tells us to be remorseful of sin.  One says, “Don’t do that!” and the other says, “Now you’ve done it!” In one single passage Saint John speaks of this double role of human conscience: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).

Both the “prevent” and the “repent” functions in a well-formed conscience are within the ambience of the merciful love of God, which we should prayerfully implore. He wants to extend his mercy to us by giving graces to prevent sin as well as graces to repent of sin.

Most Christians appreciate God’s mercy in forgiving their sins, but they seldom thank him for the countless times that his merciful love has provided the grace (or fortitude) to avoid sinning when confronted with temptation. “[H]is mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23). This is a forgotten aspect of his “abounding love” – a phrase often used in reference to the Lord’s merciful love: “[Y]ou, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who all on you” (Psalm 86:5).

Every thinking adult, civilized or savage, has a consciousness of sin, whether confessed or unconfessed. “All have sinned” (Romans 3:23; 5:12). Sin carries with it an intuitive dread of punishment or retribution.

In multifarious ways humankind has always attempted to cope with real or imagined guilt. People have tried self-flagellation, sleeping in coffins, spilling out their innermost humiliating secrets to psychiatrists, psychopathic masochism, starvation-like fasting, ceremonial crucifixion, engaging in endless hours of self-focused mediation, arduous pilgrimages and crusades, becoming hermits; the attempt to erase guilt, motivated wither consciously or subconsciously, has taken literally thousands of forms over many centuries. None of these humanly engineered forms of guilt-erasure has been found to be truly satisfactory.

It’s time now, in this age of mercy, for all to accept the fullness of God’s plan for dissolving guilt. The Bible declares this with crystal clarity: “While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30).

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.