Pope says, God’s forgiveness comes with loving caress

April 07, 2014 - The mercy of God is so loving and tender that He pardons us not with a decree, but with a caress, nursing the wounds of our sins. This is the lesson that Pope Francis drew from Monday’s Gospel reading on Jesus saving the adulterous woman from being stoned to death. Speaking during his homily at the morning Mass at the Casa Santa Marta residence in the Vatican, the Pope drew attention to Jesus’ words, “Let anyone without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
With regard to adultery, the Pope said that marriage is a symbol and also a human reality of God’s faithful relationship with his people. When marriage is ruined by adultery, this relationship of God with his people is also soiled. Explaining the attitude of Jesus towards the adulterous woman, the Pope said the Lord does not say adultery is not a sin, but He does not condemn her with the law. This mystery of God’s mercy is something difficult to understand, the Pope said, adding mercy does not cancel sins, but it is God’s pardon that cancels sins. Mercy is the manner in which God pardons. In the case of the adulterous woman, Jesus defends the sinner from her enemies and from a just condemnation. But Jesus goes beyond the law, and pardons with his mercy.
The Pope compared God’s mercy to the sun in whose light the stars disappear, like our sins. God does not pardon with a decree, but with a caress, caressing the wounds of our sins. Thus Jesus acts like a confessor. He does not scold the penitent, “Tell me, what you have done? When and with whom have you done it ?” He simply says, ‘Go, from now on, sin no more.”