Why is it so hard for us to accept that the most powerful being in the universe, the creator of all things, could love me. What have I done to deserve that? In truth nothing, but He still does. And what do we give Him in return? very little, and often we throw His gifts back in His face, and reject Him for giving us them in the first place! In truth, we could never pay back the dept we owe to the Lord. But that is not God’s intention. He does not want us to pay Him back, He wants us to pay it forward, to give to others from the wealth of our own lives. Because at the end of the day it all comes from Him anyway.
God wants us to treat our children, our friends, all of those in our lives that have less than us with the same selfless generosity that He shows us. Obtaining repayment from the person that owes you a dept, is not important to God. He tells the same story over and over… Whether it is the Prodigal Son, or the story of the servant who owed a large debt, or the story of the talents, or the story of the landowner, or the story of the jubilee. It goes on and on…, we are not called to seek repayment, but to give without expectation of anything in return. But this is clearly NOT the way of the world.
There is one exception to this law, and that is sin! Sin creates a debt that requires reparation. Sin is like theft, essentially the same as forcing another to at gun point to give you something. But the victim, in this scenario though, is not another person, it is God Himself. God only wills good for our lives, and everything good, true, or beautiful is a free gift from Him, and a blessing bestowed on our lives. But God’s will for us is to use those things, within limits, in moderation, and in a way that is rightly ordered for our flourishing. These restrictions are put in place not to keep these good things from us, but to use them only for our own good. Eating is a good, that enjoyable, and promotes our human flourishing, Overeating is a Sin, and causes us pain and suffering. When we sin, we choose our own will over His will for us. This choice is the same as taking those good things, and rejecting the giver of them.
We all constantly sin against the Lord, and we should have no expectation of His forgiveness, and yet He offers it without question. But there is one condition…, you cannot recieve this forgiveness from God without first having contrition and making reparation. Fulton Sheen said it best. “Sin like hammering a nail into a piece of wood, forgiveness is pulling the nail out, and reparation is like repairing the hole.” That is why when we die, we will not be asked by God to give an accounting of all of the gifts that we recieved from Him, but we will be forced to make reparation for all of the harm that our sins have caused to Him and all of His children.
But here is the amazing thing, if we die in loving freindship with God, He in His infinite love and unfathomable mercy, give us purgatory. A place to get right with Him, and reconcile our sins. And even if purgatory is long and painful, God’s mercy proscribes that if we are repentant, and we ask for forgiveness, He will show us the way to His kingdom, and we will all be better off for it. Because when we all make this journey of complete reparation for our sins. Then at the end, we will be in heaven, and we will all be paid up! And then, we can all love and support each other with true and full love. Hard to imagine, but that is what heaven will be like, total happiness, and perfect love! Amazing!
