Jesus teaches us to be kind to ourselves.

Little is said about mercy, and even less is mercy realized in the practice of life. It is perhaps also because one can look at the mercy and understand it as a state of the weak. However, the opposite is true. Mercy enriches a person, and great people are advocates and implementers of love through mercy.

The parables from the Gospel about the prodigal son also remind us of this: “God’s angels rejoice over one sinner who repents” (Lk 15:10). God is not only good and forgiving when the sinner returns, but God follows the sinner, he looks for the sinner and is happy when he finds the sinner. In the parable of the prodigal son, the father does not wait until the returning son comes to him, but the father rushes to meet the son, and he throws himself around the son’s neck. The parable tells about the love of God for the sinful man.

God knows, is omniscient, where the sinner is, and in what state. God knows the state of the sinner’s soul. God does not care that someone has moved away from him through sin. In his love, God will do everything for the sinner to convert, find the way back to his God, repent of his sin, and realize the magnitude of his guilt. Every sinner can be found in the person of the younger son, who squandered the wealth given to him by his father with a lavish life. The father in the gospel is God. God, whom man offends by sin. God, who sends his Son to earth, who becomes like a man in everything, except for sin, and that only to redeem and save man, a sinner. God the Son wants man to become his brother and sister so that we can call his Father, and our Father.

Christ’s death opens heaven for every sinner who has decided to repent. God reconciled the world to himself. We have Saint Augustine, who before his conversion, as he writes in his book “Confession”, was a heretic, a Manichean, a wanderer, and had an intimate child. Today we have St. Matthew, who was a publican, hated and despised by man because of his occupation and especially his way of life. We know that the murderer of St. Maria Goretta, Alexander, also died in the rumor of sanctity. Today we have many Margarets, Augustine, Matthews, and Alexanders in heaven, and today God, as a loving Father, has open arms for more Augustine, Matthews, Alexanders, and other Margarets.

What might we realize? The son, Jesus Christ, instituted the sacrament of reconciliation. He gave the power to forgive sins not only to Peter and the apostles but to every priest. Specifically, God’s mercy awaits each of us in the sacrament of reconciliation. God shows his love to us when we confess our sins and realize our failures when we want to start a new life.

It is right when we have the right view of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is right that we take advantage of the opportunity to return to our loving Father through sacramental reconciliation. It happens that we delay returning to God… God is merciful. Let us pray to the merciful God that we know how to respond and can always respond to his love.