Unafraid to seek mercy

Unafraid to Seek Mercy

The best of doctors has begun to cure you, and for him no disease is incurable. Don’t be afraid for your past wickednesses, however frightful, however unbelievable the things you have perhaps committed. They are grave diseases, but the doctor has mastered them. So don’t worry about past sins; in one moment of the sacrament they will be forgiven, and absolutely all of them will be totally forgiven. Listen to what the Apostles said on this point to those who had crucified the Lord: Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and your sins are forgiven you (Acts 2:38). It happened; they were baptized, they believed, they approached the Lord’s Body, they approached to drink the Blood they had shed. To all who have incurred guilt pardon is given by the forgiver of sins, who is not the applauder of sins; who came to call not the just, but sinners….

What’s done is done; you can’t make past deeds not to have been done; but as for future deeds, you do have the power not to do them. So why be seduced by this perverse argument of the devil’s? They are afraid of future sins which they are not yet committing; they aren’t afraid of past sins, which having committed they are lugging around with them. You haven’t done those ones, these ones are already weighing you down. Perhaps you won’t commit those, indeed if you don’t want to you certainly won’t; as for these, if you want to you can eliminate them. “I can’t,” you say. Come to grace. After all, you have received the power to, because it is written, he gave them power to become children of God (Jn 1:12). So start being a child of his…. Where you have begun to be a slave, set your heart on being a son or daughter. Get yourself pardoned for the sins you are lugging around….

But when you have been made new by the forgiveness of sins, with all your past ones forgiven, if you receive here a long stretch of life, so live that good works follow upon your faith. Live up to what you have become, a child in the family of so great a father and householder, one over whom God’s name is invoked.

Saint Augustine 

Saint Augustine († 430) is called the Doctor of Grace.