March 29, 2026
On Not Being Stingy with God’s Mercy
Shortly after my ordination, doing replacement work in a parish, I found myself in a rectory with a saintly old priest. He was over eighty, nearly blind, but widely sought out and respected. One night, alone with him, I asked him this question: “If you had your priesthood to live over again, would you do anything differently?”
From a man so full of integrity, I had fully expected that there would be no regrets. So, his answer surprised me. Yes, he did have a regret, a major one, he said: “If I had my priesthood to do over again, I would be easier on people the next time. I wouldn’t be so stingy with God’s mercy, with the sacraments, with forgiveness. You see what was drilled into me in the seminary was the phrase: The truth will set you free. So, I believed it was my responsibility always to give a hard challenge, and that can be good. But I fear that I was too hard on people. They have pain enough without me and the Church laying further burdens on them. I should have risked God’s mercy more!”
This struck me because, less than a year before, as I took my final exams in the seminary, one of the priests who examined me, gave me this warning: “Be careful,” he said, “never let your feelings get in the way. Don’t be soft, that’s wrong. Remember, hard as it is, the truth sets people free!” Sound advice, it would seem, for a young priest.
However, after fifty years in ministry, I’m more inclined to the old priest’s advice: We need to risk more God’s mercy. The place of justice and truth should never be ignored, but we must risk letting the infinite, unbounded, unconditional, undeserved mercy of God flow more freely. The mercy of God is as accessible as the nearest water tap, and so we, like Isaiah, must proclaim a mercy that has no price tag: Come, come without money, without virtue, come, drink freely of God’s mercy!
What holds us back? Why are we so hesitant in proclaiming God’s inexhaustible, prodigal, indiscriminate mercy?
Partly our motives are good, noble even. The concern for truth, justice, sound orthodoxy, proper morality, public form, proper sacramental preparation, and fear of scandal, are not unimportant. Love needs to be tempered by truth, even as truth must be moderated by love.
But sometimes our motives are less noble and our hesitancy arises more out of timidity, fear, legalism, the self-righteousness of the Pharisees, and an impoverished understanding of God. Thus, no cheap grace is dispensed on our watch!
In doing this we are, I fear, misguided, less than good shepherds, out of tune with the God that Jesus incarnated. God’s mercy, as Jesus revealed it, embraces indiscriminately, like the sun that shines equally on the good as well as the bad, the deserving and the undeserving, the initiated and the uninitiated.
One of the truly startling insights that Jesus gave us is that the mercy of God cannot not go out to everyone. It’s always free, undeserved, unconditional, universal in embrace, reaching beyond all religion, custom, rubric, political affiliation, mandatory program, ideology, and even sin itself.
For our part then, especially those of us who are parents, ministers, teachers, catechists, and elders, we must risk proclaiming the prodigal character of God’s mercy. We must not dispense God’s mercy as if it were ours to dispense; dole out God’s forgiveness as if it were a limited commodity; put conditions on God’s love as if God needs to be protected; or cut off access to God as if we were the keeper of the heavenly gates. We aren’t. If we tie God’s mercy to our own timidity and fear, we limit it to the size of our own minds. A bad game.
It is interesting to note in the Gospels how the apostles, well-meaning of course, often tried to keep certain people away from Jesus as if they weren’t worthy, as if they were an affront to his holiness or would somehow taint his purity. So, they tried to send away children, prostitutes, tax collectors, known sinners, and the uninitiated of all kinds. Always Jesus overruled their attempts with words to this effect: “Let them come to me. I want them to come.”
Things haven’t changed. Perennially, we, well-intentioned persons, for the same reasons as the apostles, continue trying to keep certain individuals and groups away from God’s mercy as it is accessible in Christian Word, Sacrament, and Community. Jesus managed things then; I suspect that he can manage them now. God doesn’t need our gatekeeping.
What God wants is for everyone, regardless of age, religion, culture, personal weakness, or lack of Christian practice, to come to the unlimited waters of divine mercy.
The renowned naturalist John Muir once challenged Christians with these words: Why are Christians so reluctant to let animals into their stingy heaven?
We are also, I fear, stingy with God’s prodigal mercy.
Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher, and award-winning author.
He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.
Follow on Facebook www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser