God is Merciful, and also Judge

 

It is surprising to hear some Catholic's understanding of 

the Mercy of God, and the absence of the necessity of 

atonement or acts of reparation. 

Confessing our sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation

means that we admit what we did wrong, and that we

understand why it was wrong, because it hurt God and 

usually another person(s) too. 

We know that being literally forgiven by God in this 

Sacrament is an immense grace that only exists in the 

Catholic Church, we know it is because God wants to

draw us nearer to Him while we are still living in this

dimension, but most people also have an inbuilt sense of

justice and balance; weighing things up.

 

If someone breaks somebody else's window by his own

fault, he can confess this to the priest in Confession, but 

he will more than likely be advised by the priest to go

to the person's house, and take responsibility for the 

reparation and cost of the window. 

It is only what any normal decent person would

do, who might not even be Catholic. 

We are after all for the moment living in a material world.

 

But some seems to have an unrealistic idea of God, they 

say that no matter what you do, God forgives unconditionally, 

because of His Mercy. 

But if they don't think that there are consequences for our

sins, how do they explain the existence of Purgatory, which 

is part of our Faith?

Purgatory exists because most people are not pure enough to

enter directly into Heaven, we need to purge our sins first,

it is a logical consequence.

These people believe that everybody goes directly to 

heaven,

no matter the quality of their soul and their person.

 

They do not believe in the existence of Hell either, even 

though Jesus Christ Himself spoke about it often, in the

New Testament He mentions it 60 times,

it seems therefore a bit rich for  anyone to decide that 

we can ignore that part.

This attitude is a pure protestant one; it is a "once saved,

always saved" belief, but Catholicism teaches that we can 

lose the grace of God at any moment, because of our fallen

nature, therefore we must never take God's Mercy for granted.

 

Being Catholic requires not only Faith, but also work.

Principally work on our self, self improvement, our own 

sanctification.

 

I heard someone use the words; "we're off the hook", which 

is not the right way to look at confession of our sins.

Going to Confession is never a light-hearted affair, and

why do we say in the Act of Contrition that we detest our sins

because of God's just punishment?  

 

Modernism and relativism has brought much falseness into

many Catholics understanding of the Faith, they have made 

it into a subjective, comfortable version that suits them.

 

But real Catholics are soldiers, they engage in the spiritual

battle every day, the battle against the evil one, and this is 

far from comfortable, I would wonder about anyone who feels 

comfortable.

God's reality is objective and unchanging.