Tag Archives: God

What Brought You to Faith?

10 Wednesday Feb 2021

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I have a conversation currently still in process that started on Facebook and moved to private messaging with an atheist from Australia. He is very respectful, and to get me talking, that’s all I really need from a person. So his initial comment has stretched into multiple comments spanning everything from how we know what we believe is true, to progressive revelation, to secular morality, and more. We’re not even done yet, but I’m waiting for him to finally say, “All right, Jesus man. That’s enough.”

It’s gotten me thinking again about why I believe what I believe. More than that, why do those reasons work for me and not someone else? I guess we can all chalk it up to the Holy Spirit, but I’m sure we all have our own story here about how we got from no belief to belief, or how we grew up believing and got through the gauntlet of secular culture to the faith we are in now.

I put this out as a question to all of you who write on here – and I guess to anyone else, as well, but mostly to all of you who write here. What did it for you? What brought you to the faith or kept you there when you were teetering on the edge of doubt?

For me, it’s miracle stories. I know that might sound weird, but it’s true. In community college, I took an Intro to Philosophy class and had a crisis of faith. But I reflected on the life of George Muller of Bristol. He was a pastor who was frustrated that all the businessmen in his congregation were cutthroat and unscrupulous in their business practices. Their excuse was that their jobs were cutthroat. Unless you cheated, you would never be able to support yourself and your family.

Muller did not agree and decided to embark on building an orphanage from the ground up solely on prayer. He never asked anyone for money. He never asked for supplies. But by the end of his life, he had taken care of around 10,000 orphans and had established 117 schools that gave Christian education to more than 120,000 children. All on prayer. All on faith.

In his diary are stories of the children never having to wait more than half an hour for their three square meals each day – even when the cupboards were bare. Once, they were out of milk, and a milk truck or carriage broke down right in front of the orphanage. The man who rode it said the milk would go bad anyway, so the orphanage might as well have it. Another time, a baker couldn’t get any sleep because God kept telling him to bake bread for Muller’s children. His life is full of these stories.

Every time my mind would wonder, “Could I be wrong? Could this philosopher be right? Is my faith a sham?” I would immediately think, “But what about George Muller?”

It is his story and other miracle stories from other people’s lives that help keep me in the faith. I know great men and women have argued back and forth about whether God exists or not and whether Christianity has enough historical evidence to back it up. I know those discussions lead many to faith as well. But for me, it’s the direct action of God in the world in ways that cannot be easily explained away that inspire me to keep going.

Well, that and the donuts after Mass.

©2021 Catholic Anonymous.

The prodigality of God

30 Tuesday Jun 2020

Posted by in Bible, Faith, St Luke's Gospel

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Prodigal

Today’s reading for morning prayer was Luke 15:11-end. As I reflected on it I was struck, not by the action of the Father, or the forgiveness of the son or the grudging spirit of the eldest son, all of which are my usual focus, but by the prodigality of God. By any standards of any time the actions of the Father go above and beyond any expectations. The younger son has dishonoured the family name, he has wasted a portion of the family inheritance and has brought shame upon his father. It is to his credit that he realises this and wants nothing more than a place among the hired servants; he knows he has forfeited any rights his birth might have conferred upon him; he has thrown them all away, and on nothing of value and for nothing of value, unless, of course, the wisdom of hindsight is thought to be worth it.

The Father’s love is prodigal. Running was something done by servants and children, elders did not run; yet the Father runs. He runs not to an honoured guest who by the standards of the time would have brought honour on him and his household, but to someone who has done the opposite.

The Father has already gone beyond anything reasonable in dividing the inheritance, he is under no social obligation even to receive his dishonoured son; had he reacted as his eldest son did no one could have complained. Sin has consequences, moral hazard demanded that the sinner suffer. But again, the Father  goes above the beyond. He forgives, welcomes and restores the penitent.

The God we see revealed here is indeed “Love.” He is lavish, his bounty is inexhaustible, even, to our way of thinking, wasteful. The elder son reacts as we might well, and as we might take our faith to require us to act – were it not for what Jesus says here. He who was lost has been found, and we see what He means when He says there is more joy over one sinner saved than in many righteous people.

How unfair that sounds to our ears. How can those who come at the last hour get the same as those who were there from the start? Those who faithfully observe the commandments (and often, as faithfully observe those who do not), who tithe, who love their neightbour as themselves and give of their substance to the poor, have they not deserved the Kingdom of Heaven? Jesus’ answer is “no.”

We cannot and do not “win” our way to Heaven. Grace is free to all who will receive it, as is forgiveness. That is a prodigality as beyond our comprehension as the love of God is. These are words we can understand only in relation to what we know and feel. Which of us would die for someone who was indifferent to us? God is indifferent to none of us; if He seems far off, it is we, not Him, who is far off.

He is there. He waits. He will run to us. He loved us first. Let us do the same.

An Anniversary

15 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in Faith

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Six years ago, today, a new little blog poked its head up over the parapet of that desert mission above and made its first post. The founder of this blog and all who commented on that post, are rarely seen in the precincts today. But that post, quoted here in full, still motivates us.

This is a blog about Christianity under siege, and sometimes this Christian under attack. That’s not to say I think that in this country we are persecuted, but just that it can be difficult to make one’s voice heard above the clamant voices. This is my voice, for what it is worth. My first two posts appeared on another blog, and I am grateful to Jon for making them available here.

The spirit that Jessica showed in post number one, has been our constant guide here, ever since, as has been the tagline, she chose for us.

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you … John 13:34

Well, we all fall far short of the goal, but we keep trying, and given the troubles we’ve all seen here, I think we’ve done fairly well, with God’s help.

Some of us have been here since almost the beginning, some came here much later, it doesn’t matter. I’m glad you are here, and we will go forward together.

And so, here’s to the next six!

God and Love

08 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by in Faith

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christos

Newman described well the type of Christian who is so worried about ‘Judgement’ that she never shares the joy of knowing Christ, so conscious of her sins that she cannot take pleasure in her Christianity. The passage which I quoted yesterday is not only a warning to me (as I have pronounced tendencies that way) but also has wider application.

One of the things often commented upon by anti-Christian polemicists is just that tendency to be concerned with judging others which can come from judging ourselves. Jesus Himself asked how we could love God, whom we did not know, if we did not love our brother whom we did? If we hate ourself, how can we love others? What, after all, is love, save that which emanates from the mystery of the Economy of the Trinity?

The most startling insight of Christianity is not the revelation that God is one, but that He is Three. The Jews, and now the Muslims, hold the first belief; Christians alone hold the latter. When St. John tells us that ‘God is love’, he describes the relationship of the Persons of the Holy Trinity.

The only distinction between the persons of the Trinity is their mutual relations. None of the persons exists in respect to Himself alone, but each exists relatively to the other two:
…the “three persons” who exist in God are the reality of word and love in their attachment to each other. They are not substances, personalities in the modern sense, but the relatedness whose pure actuality… does not impair unity of the highest being but fills it out. St Augustine once enshrined this idea in the following formula: “He is not called Father with reference to himself but only in relation to the Son; seen by himself he is simply God.” Here the decisive point comes beautifully to light. “Father” is purely a concept of relationship. Only in being-for the other is he Father; in his own being-in-himself he is simply God. Person is the pure relation of being related, nothing else. Relationship is not something extra added to the person, as it is with us; it only exists at all as relatedness.

….the First Person [the Father] does not beget the Son in the sense of the act of begetting coming on top of the finished Person; it is the act of begetting, of giving oneself, of streaming forth. It is identical with the act of giving.

(Joseph Ratzinger Introduction to Christianity, pp. 131-132; cf. Augustine, ; De Trinitate VII, 1, 2.)

In short, each of the persons of the Trinity lives completely for the others; each is a complete gift of self to the others. The complete self-giving not only constitutes the individual persons of the Trinity, but also their inseparable oneness.

That love, it was which impelled  him to take action to help his creatures gone astray so when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman to redeem us and make us sons by adoption. If He loves us, let us love ourself too.

He is Risen Indeed!

16 Sunday Apr 2017

Posted by in Bible, Catholic Tradition, Easter, Faith

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The Exsultet, with which we begin the Easter Vigil, ends with the words:

May this flame be found still burning
by the Morning Star:
the one Morning Star who never sets,
Christ your Son,
who, coming back from death’s domain,
has shed his peaceful light on humanity,
and lives and reigns for ever and ever.

R. Amen.

The Latin reads:

Flammas eius lúcifer matutínus invéniat:
ille, inquam, lúcifer, qui nescit occásum.
Christus Fílius tuus,
qui, regréssus ab ínferis, humáno géneri serénus illúxit,
et tecum vivit et regnat in sæcula sæculórum.

Unbelievably, there are sad sacks such as Bosco here, who, being monoglot and poorly-educated, see the word ‘lucifer’ and imagine that here we are worshipping Lucifer – and if you find that as impossible to believe as I did, here’s a link.

The reference is, of course, to 2 Peter 1:19. The day has dawned, the Morning Star has risen in our hearts, because the Light which ligtheth the world has banished death, and our hearts rejoice, being freed from the burden of sin. Like St Peter and the Holy Women, we could not have discovered the joy of the Resurrection had we stayed imprisoned in our fears and selfishness. On this first Easter night, the angels moved the stone away, and so, too, does Christ move away the stone which imprisons us in the tomb of our sense of sin. We are not without hope. We who were lost are found, we who we hopeless are redeemed, not by anything we deserve, but by His love, freely offered for us on the Cross at Calvary. Hope is the gift of Christ to us.

On that first Maundy Thursday two of the Apostles betrayed the Lord. Judas was the one who brought the troops to arrest Jesus, but Peter, who had promised to support Him no matter what, betrayed him thrice before the cock crew. Those who mock and say how can such a man be the foundation of the Church of Jesus need more of a sense of self; when they look within do they see a sinless being? The Gospel story is all the more convincing for this detail. Who, making up a narrative, would include such a detail about the leader of the Apostles? But where Judas, in in his pride, despaired of forgiveness and hanged himself, Peter lived his shame and was forgiven and redeemed; in that, Peter is the model for us all.

Jesus knew that Peter would fail; he told him as much. But that did not mean that Jesus reproached Peter; he knew that Peter’s conscience would do that work for him. Peter spoke with confidence, a confidence which reminds us of what St Paul told the Corinthians: ‘Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.’ Peter did not watch; he fell. We, often, do not watch, and we fall. If we have been told that we ‘are saved’, then when we fall, we either despair, like Judas, or, in this modern world, think it a sign that such assurance was wrong; either way we turn from the Lord. But if we read the story of Peter aright, we know that Jesus does not turn from us. He did not suffer on the Cross, He did not break the bonds of death in order that we should be lost. Unlike Satan, who comes to kill and destroy, and whose strongest weapon is our despair and pride, Jesus came that we should have life, and have it abundantly. The hope and the joy of the Resurrection are His strongest weapons, for they are the product of His love.

St Thomas needed to put his finger in the holes made by the nails before he believed, but as Jesus has told us, it is even more blessed to believe without seeing. So, my dear friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, may the joy of the Resurrection be with us all, ever more.

Christ is risen from the dead,
by death trampling down upon death,
and to those in the tombs He has granted life.

God Save the Queen?

08 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by in Anglicanism, Church/State, Faith

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Queen Diamond Jubilee

Neo’s post yesterday was a deserved tribute to a Head of State who, unlike many others, attracts no opprobrium and who has no axes to grind or agenda to pursue. She is Queen by Grace of God, and as a practising Anglican she takes that seriously; this is, for her, a sacred trust and she cannot just hand it over because she feels tired or would like a more restful life. She has, of course, the example of her uncle David before her, the Edward VIII, who found he could not discharge his duty without the woman he loved by his side, and slipped off into gilded exile and a life of pointless hedonism. Ironically, he might be said to represent the modern way of being; what mattered to him were his feelings and his personal fulfilment; that it all ended as it did, on a dying fall, in a life which achieved nothing, with the great gifts he had been given going to waste, might not surprise those such as the Queen who find that duty is a better guide to a life well-lived.

Duty is much out of fashion in our world. It has connotations of the things the world most hates – self-denial and even self-sacrifice, with no thought of reward. What’s the deal, it seems to say? I live this one life I have for others? What about the most important person in the world, ME? Who lives for ME?’ The Christian message tells us this is not the only life, and that we do not live it for ourselves except in what, to the secular mind, seems the oddest way. Here, in this vale of tears, we prepare ourselves for the life of the world to come, and hope, pray and work that we might be fit for it. That does not mean that we can, in any wise, merit our salvation, but it does mean we can witness to the mercy and the grace we have received by following the example of the Lord through whom we are redeemed.

In the case of the Queen, this has meant a life of service to the country. It would be easy, which is why it happens so often, for the cynic to say how nice it must be to have all your wants supplied in return for duties which are often largely ceremonial; but as usual, the cynic misses the point. The Queen is a symbol of national unity, and her very longevity in an age of such rapid change has helped hold together a nation which otherwise might have found itself bewildered by it. That she is a wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother enables people far removed from her to find points of identification; being Queen does not mean your children make fairy-tale marriages and live happily ever after.

But through the bad times and the good, through the long journey from Empire, through decolonisation, Europe and now Brexit, there is one constant – Queen Elizabeth II. She is a reminder that our system of government is not merely secular. At her coronation she was anointed with sacred oil, and she consecrated herself in God’s presence to the service of the nation. She does it not for herself, but because she told God she would do it. God’s response we can see daily. We shall not, unless we are very fortunate, look on her like again – so God save the Queen!

Proving God Exists

30 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by in Education, Faith, Uncategorized

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after Unknown artist, line engraving, late 16th century

St Anselm

St. Anselm of Canterbury, in his Proslogion, made the first ontological argument, arguing as Wikipedia tells us: 

“that than which nothing greater can be conceived”, and argued that this being must exist in the mind; even in the mind of the person who denies the existence of God. He suggested that, if the greatest possible being exists in the mind, it must also exist in reality. If it only exists in the mind, then an even greater being must be possible — one which exists both in the mind and in reality. Therefore, this greatest possible being must exist in reality.

That makes quite a lot of logical sense, at least to me. But it’s been argued down the ages, right until the present day.

kurt_godelMathematician and logician Kurt Gödel when he died in 1978, left behind a series of calculations that purport to prove St. Amselm’s thesis. These, in fact:

“Ax. 1. {P(φ)∧◻∀x[φ(x)→ψ(x)]} →P(ψ)Ax. 2.P(¬φ)↔¬P(φ)Th. 1.P(φ)→◊∃x[φ(x)]Df. 1.G(x)⟺∀φ[P(φ)→φ(x)]Ax. 3.P(G)Th. 2.◊∃xG(x)Df. 2.φ ess x⟺φ(x)∧∀ψ{ψ(x)→◻∀y[φ(y)→ψ(y)]}Ax. 4.P(φ)→◻P(φ)Th. 3.G(x)→G ess xDf. 3.E(x)⟺∀φ[φ ess x→◻∃yφ(y)]Ax. 5.P(E)Th. 4.◻∃xG(x)”.

Don’t look at me like that, nobody promised there wouldn’t be math, and if I had a thirty-foot ladder, well, maybe I could find the bottom of the pool. In any case, some explanatory notes:

Definition 1: x is God-like if and only if x has as essential properties those and only those properties which are positive

Definition 2: A is an essence of x if and only if for every property B, x has B necessarily if and only if A entails B

Definition 3: x necessarily exists if and only if every essence of x is necessarily exemplified

Axiom 1: If a property is positive, then its negation is not positive

Axiom 2: Any property entailed by—i.e., strictly implied by—a positive property is positive

Axiom 3: The property of being God-like is positive

Axiom 4: If a property is positive, then it is necessarily positive

Axiom 5: Necessary existence is positive

Axiom 6: For any property P, if P is positive, then being necessarily P is positive

Theorem 1: If a property is positive, then it is consistent, i.e., possibly exemplified

Corollary 1: The property of being God-like is consistent

Theorem 2: If something is God-like, then the property of being God-like is an essence of that thing

Theorem 3: Necessarily, the property of being God-like is exemplified

My course in introductory logic, and my math courses, both long ago, say that those explanations each and together make sense. But this isn’t new, after all, it came out in 1978.

What is new, is that “Christoph Benzmüller of Berlin’s Free University, who ran the calculations along with Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo of the Technical University in Vienna, told Spiegel Online: “It’s totally amazing that from this argument led by Gödel, all this stuff can be proven automatically in a few seconds or even less on a standard notebook.”

“I didn’t know it would create such a huge public interest but [Gödel’s ontological proof] was definitely a better example than something inaccessible in mathematics or artificial intelligence…

They do say that, “The point of the researchers’ argument was that they were not directly trying to prove the existence of God, but rather to showcase the power of computers.”

Well, I guess they did both. Still, it’s far enough over my head that I think I’ll take their word for it, and continue to take God on faith, myself. It is interesting, though.

Gene Veith at Cranach, where I found the story, also notes that Gödel was baptized Lutheran, and remained a Bible reading Christian although he was not a member of any church.

Saved? An Advent reflection

30 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Advent, Catholic Tradition, Faith, Salvation

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AdventWeek1

The major, but often unstated argument against the idea of universalism – that is that all will be saved – is that Christ was incarnated, died and was resurrected to save us. If we are all saved by God’s mercy, the question arises why did he bother? There was a purpose in his mission, his suffering and in the work of the Church he founded, none of which can be adequately accounted for in the belief that we are all saved. At the very least, the requirement for salvation is faith that Jesus is Lord and that we are saved through faith in him. It follows from this that, embracing our salvation, our new life in him should bear witness to the changes it has wrought in us. That’s not asking for the sort of behaviour which some of us might find excessive (although we might pull ourselves up a bit here and ask how else one is supposed to respond to the Good News that we are saved?), but it is to say that a faith which in no way evidences itself is a strange phenomenon (St James has harder things to say about this, of course). Now we can, and we do, argue about the Church, but as four years or so here shows (and as history confirms) this is a fruitless pursuit; but the churches all have in common the view that Jesus came to save us, and to offer us eternal life.

Now it may be, as some would argue, that the alternative to eternal life is death, extinction, non-existence, and we have discussed this here many times (as the link will show, a surprisingly large number). In my simple way, I take the many mentions of hell in the New Testament by Jesus to mean that there is a hell. I am quite content to think, with St Isaac the Syrian, that it is a state of separation from God that sinful and wilful men bring on themselves, and that the realisation of what one has done is like a burning pain, and I am uneasy with the literal view; but I know what my Churches teaches and reject the crude caricature foisted on us by atheists who ought to know better. But whatever view one takes, there is a place of separation from God, and it is a place from which, if we but knew it, we should pray to be saved. But we do not need to pray for a Saviour – we have one in Christ Jesus. Although, as a Catholic, I would, of course, say that the best place to find him is in the Church he founded, I don’t, as I say, want to be side-tracked by confessional disputes. I know many people who are better followers of Christ than I am if judged by their behaviour, and many of them are not Catholics, and if pressed I should simply say God is the only Just Judge and he alone can say who is saved and who is not; I should also add that I have found the Catholic Church the best place to find my Lord and could only say, if asked, that I am sure others would find it so too. But, and this gets us back to the main point of this post, the fact remains there is something from which to be saved. That being so, then unless all men embrace Christ as Saviour, they cannot be saved. Those who are ignorant of his holy name are in another category – that of invincible ignorance, and the failure is that of those who preach his name, not of those we have not reached. But again, the conclusion is that people need saving.

Our friend Bosco tells us truly that Christ is knocking at the door of our heart – and we should let him in, not because we fear hell-fire, but because we recognised in his out-stretched arms the love he first had for us. Now there’s a thought for Advent.

The end of the liturgical year: reflections

20 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by in Catholic Tradition, Faith, Pope

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Pope_Francis_meets_with_students_in_Paul_VI_audience_hall_on_May_31_2014_Credit_Daniel_Ibez_CNA_7_CNA_5_31_14

Our secularised society has seen Christmas merchandise in the shops for some time, but for Christians, Christmas does not start until the Mass of the Nativity. Before then we have the four weeks of Advent, which start next week, and before that, today, we have the end of the liturgical year and, in the Catholic Church, the Feast of Christ the King. For me, as for many, the end of the Church year is a time for reflection.

The year began, as it ends, with continuing controversy over the position of Pope Francis on the issue of Communion for the divorced and remarried. The attempt by four Cardinals to get him to give a clear ruling has failed, and for all his self-proclaimed desire to have a robust debate, on this issue one is not going to be had. The teaching of the Church remains where it has always been, and all that is likely to happen during this pontificate is that those Bishops who have always allowed it will claim that they have the Pope’s approval, and those who have not, will continue to claim that they have the unbroken tradition of the Church on their side. There will be no judgements, except against the ‘rigid’ and the ‘inflexible’, by which we are meant to understand not those who rigidly and inflexibly believe that the ‘Spirit of Vatican II’ gives carte blanche to an idea of ‘mercy’ close to indifference, but rather those who rigidly and inflexibly stick to what they have always been taught; still, to repeat a much quoted set of words ‘who am I to judge?’

We can, I suspect, concentrate too much on this situation where, as I say, not very much is likely to change. The Pope wishes to take what he considers a more Christ-like attitude to those who have fallen, whilst those who oppose him wish to assert that whatever the change in the context, the rules apply; the division between the two mind sets is as old as Christianity, it did not begin with Francis and it will not end with him. The assumption that there are a host of divorced Catholics busy flouting the rules is just that – an assumption. No one knows if it is true. If there are those who flout the rules, they would no doubt point to the many who do the same with regard to contraception and pre-marital sex. The fact is that on these issues many Catholics defy Church teaching, and will no doubt continue to do so. It’s quite unclear whether anything can be done here. It isn’t really, pace the famous footnotes in Chapter 8 of AL about whether the rules are clear – on contraception and fornication they could not be clearer, it is about whether we are willing to submit ourselves to the teaching of the Church; we only look for ambiguity if we wish to find it – and if we wish to find it, we shall surely do so.

As we reach the end of the liturgical year and prepare for Advent, which is a period where we prepare for the two comings of the Lord – the Incarnation, and His second coming again in glory at the end of time. It is often said that it is a penitential season, but this is not what the Catechism says. It is, though, a time for thoughtful reflection and meditation, and the beginning and the end of Christian wisdom is to prepare for the Second Coming by bearing in mind what we receive from the Incarnation and the Resurrection. We cannot, of course, hope to merit what we have received, but we can show our gratitude.

Mercy and the Law

29 Thursday Sep 2016

Posted by in Bible, Faith, Salvation

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prodigal_son_1

There are few topics more likely to get Catholics hot under the collar than the topic of this piece. Pope Francis comes in for a lot of criticism for his emphasis on God’s mercy. Many, it sometimes seem, read the parable of the Prodigal Son and think the elder son had it right – why on earth should his wastrel of a younger brother be welcomed back unconditionally? But we are, perhaps, neglecting the message of rdemption and hope it offers. There is a natural desire in us for ‘justice’ to be done. If someone has offended us, many of us find it hard simply to accept an apology and let go of our grievance; some can remember sleights from many years ago with a preciseness which we cannot bring to acts of loving kindness; but perhaps we have not had enough of those and too many sleights?

God as the Israelites came to know him had many of the attributes of the tribal gods of the tribes around them: he would deliver his people victory in battle; he would scatter their enemies; he needed appeasing with animal sacrifices; he was a jaelous God, swift to anger; he could be bargained with and his wrath appeased by sacrifices and by sharp reasoning. The Israelites knew there was One God, and they knew His Law, but they saw Him as the Lord God Mighty in battle who resembled a wise but irascible tribal leader. But as the fuller revelation we got from Our Lord showed, this was an imperfect understanding. Some, now, as then, go to the other extreme and almost see no need for repentance, coming close to, or even embracing, universalism. BUt, alas, not all are saved. Not because they cannot be saved,. but because they elect not to be; God loves us so much that, like any good parent, he does not insist we love him back. A broken and a contrite heart he will not reject; but a proud and haughty spirit will reject him.

The key, surely, is in the revolutionary notion that ‘God is love’? Note, we are not told that love is one of his many attributes, or that it is a part of him, or that it is something he can do or not do; it is his very essence. The Trinity is love, it is sustained by a love so overwhelming that it spilled out intop the creation of all that there is. Can we conceive of that? Not really. But God is good, he knows his children, and so the Word Incarnate taught us that God is the Father – the Father we see in the prodigal, who dioscerns the secrets of our hearts, who desires only that we turn from sin and return his love. But so damaged and broken are we by sin and its effects that we complicate this. Which part of ‘Repent and believe’ do we not understand? Which of us would turn to a child who was sorry and shout at him or her and insist that they did a period of penance before we would believe them? Of course, if they showed their contrition with some act of goodness and kindness to us or to others, we should rejoice, but we would not turn our child from our door if they repented. So nor will God. None of this exempts us from obeying his precepts, or from needing to be reconciled when we fall away – but it gives s the hope that the Resurrection brings – that if we will but return his love then all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well.