A Mercy That Knows No Bounds

April 24, 2022

As all of you probably know by now, I love to grill.  Recently, I was grilling a great piece of fish and on the other side of the grilling surface were my veggies.  While the fish was cooking to perfection, I noticed the veggies were struggling. The uneven cooking temperature surprised me.  It seemed that something was keeping the grill from cooking to perfection.  A few days later I decided to investigate the issue to see why this was happening.  The answer was quite simple; the grill needed to be cleaned.  It wasn’t firing on all cylinders.  When I saw what was caked on from constant grilling, I was shocked.  I had assumed the hot grill just burned everything away, but I was wrong.  I even discovered some dead asparagus that had slipped through the grates.  I was stunned by what I found and regretful about how I let it go too long before cleaning.

Sometimes we might feel the same way about life.  We go too long with old habits, we allow the experiences of the past to build up over time.  God today wants us to know His mercy endures forever.  He wants us to know in His eyes everything is forgivable.  He longs for us to fire on all cylinders and give Him glory.  To do this He offers us mercy upon mercy.  He cleans up our past and invites us to embrace His merciful love anew.  Even though we live in a throw-away society, we will never be thrown away.  In a society that sees almost everything as replaceable, God sees us as irreplaceable.  This happens because He offers us mercy.

Jesus came into this world to not only die for our sins but to provide a living and true example of what mercy is, what it looks like and how it can be experienced.  We do not earn it, but He offers it freely.  His mercy endures forever.

May we receive it with openness and love,

Fr. John