True Mercy Liberates Us

Where does guilty feeling come from? Sometimes after I sin, I felt so guilty. Too guilty to face God. Too guilty to pray. I loathed myself for the sin. I was so ashamed. I was afraid that if other people know my real self, they will not like me as much.

Where did all these feelings come from? God?

When I read the parable of the prodigal son, the Father did not humiliate the son at all. The Father never sent any messengers to jeer at the son’s misfortunes. It was the son himself who remembered how good his Father was, and it was his own idea to come back to be humiliated, to work as a servant at his Father’s own house, because he felt that he is not worthy to be a son.

God’s mercy does not humiliate us the recipients. It liberates us. I can be sure of one thing, that He loves us. Because He loves us so much, we can’t help but love Him back. Every time we know that we did something that shows our rejection to our loved ones, we will feel guilty because we know that is wrong. Every time we sin, we reject our Father who loves us so much. Therefore, we feel guilty.

Whew, what a train of thoughts.

However, God does not operate on guilt trip. The Holy Spirit convicts us but does not humiliate us. The Spirit gives us assurance of what is right and wrong but never rejects us. John Paul II in Dives in Misericordia (The Mercy of God) said that God’s mercy confirms us in our human dignity and therefore, liberates us. His mercy does not humiliate us who receive it. It liberates us.

I am going to admit that I often repent because I feel so guilty. It is not necessarily bad at first. However, if I am “addicted” to guilt that it dominates my relationship with God, then guilt is very dangerous. Guilt is bad and demeaning when it becomes the base of our loving relationship with anyone let alone God who loves us so much. So many people are “addicted” to guilt. So many people based their relationship with God by this guilty feeling. No wonder a lot of people are either leaving the church because they want to avoid this guilty feeling, or being reluctant to receive God’s love because they feel too guilty.

Ultimately why do we come back to God then?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that “the desire for God is written in human heart.” When we reject God, we know we are missing something good. We know that we are rejecting our own nature, for our nature is to be called into communion with God. It is our nature to love God and live in communion with Him. We should not need to be forced into communing with Him by guilt, and He neverdid that. We did that to ourselves. We are called to know and love Him. The more we know Him, the more we love Him, and the less are our relationships with him based on guilt.

To Him be all glory and honor forever and ever!!!


God bless you all,
Adrianus Indra Setiadi