There are people who seem to walk with a dead conscience. They no longer seem to feel the burden of their sins. On the other hand, there are people who feel so ashamed of having sinned they deem themselves unworthy of God’s forgiveness....CONTINUE READING
Have you ever felt so sinful you can no longer pray?
Because of the weight of your sins, you feel ashamed. You know that when you pray, you draw close to God. But you can’t even imagine approaching Him without a clean heart.
What must you do? Should you go on distancing yourself from the Lord? If you continue to live your life away from Him, will your sins ever diminish? Or would you sin even more, and your sins would eventually draw you ever farther away from God?
There were times when I committed the mistake of letting my sins keep me away from prayer
In my mind, I picture Him being angry at me, telling me how I failed Him again and again.
But the truth is that it was only my imagination that told me so. The truth is that God is more merciful than I could ever understand.
I once heard a priest who confided that when he was a child, he would be afraid to look at the image of Jesus Christ that hang upon a wall of their house. He imagined Him to be angry at him for the bad things he has done. But then whenever he succeeded in taking a look at the image of Jesus, it was always the same image. The image of the kind and merciful God. God is not the one who changes. It is merely our perception of Him. What we must remember then is that once we turn our eyes once again towards Him, He is the same compassionate God who loves us and is willing to forgive our ever fault.
So no matter how sinful you may feel, pray.
Ask God sincerely for forgiveness. Believe in His infinite mercy.
There is no sin He cannot forgive except the sin we refuse to repent from and confess to Him.
The Lord has even established the Sacrament of Reconciliation to help us deal with our guilt. If you know that you have committed a mortal sin, why not visit Jesus in Confession? He is there Himself, waiting for you to come.
And when the priest says that your sins are forgiven, believe with all of your heart. For God Himself forgives you. And can God ever lie? He has given you a priest to hear because He knows that we need to hear from our own ears that we are forgiven.
Even before your actual confession, if you have perfect contrition, God already forgives you.
Never let the devil make you believe that you are just too dirty to come to God
God is the One who can cleanse you. He alone can wash away your sins.
Remember the father who waits for his prodigal son’s return. Remember the Shepherd who looks for His lost sheep and leaves the ninety behind just to find the one He has lost.
And will He not find you and forgive you and take you upon His arms when He finds you?
O, little one, believe in God’s compassion who took upon Himself the suffering and death that was meant as punishment for our sins.
Why must He die only to turn us away even when we seek Him with all of our hearts?
“Come now, let us argue it out,
says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be like snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.”
-Isaiah 1:18 (NRSVCE)
“And if people are hurt, what does Jesus do? Scold them because they are hurt? No, He comes and He carries them on His shoulders.” – Pope Francis
“Write this for the benefit of distressed souls: when a soul sees and realizes the gravity of its sins, when the whole abyss of the misery into which it immersed itself is displayed before its eyes, let it not despair, but with trust let it throw itself into the arms of My mercy, as a child into the arms of its beloved mother. These souls have a right of priority to My compassionate Heart, they have first access to My mercy. Tell them that no soul that has called upon My mercy has been disappointed or brought to shame. I delight particularly in a soul which has placed its trust in My goodness.” – Jesus to St. Faustina (Divine Mercy In My Soul, 1541)
Jocelyn Soriano is the author of the book Defending My Catholic Faith.
“Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.” – 1 Peter 3:15 (NABRE)
You may also want to read “What Did Jesus Do When He Met a Sinner Condemned To Die?”
