Our Lenten Journey with St Francis de Sales – 22 March – Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Lent – Isaias 1:16-19, John 9:1-38 – Scripture search here: https://www.drbo.org/
“If sin abounds in malice to destroy,
grace superabounds to repair.”
Romans 5:20
“One thing I know
that whereas I was blind.
now I see.”
John 9:25
THE MERCY OF GOD
ON THE RETURN OF A SINNER
St Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
Doctor Caritas
“THE ENTRANCE OF SIN, takes away life from the heart and from all its good works; the entrance of grace, restores life to the heart and to all its good works. A severe winter kills the plants of the field, so that, were it to continue always, they should remain forever dead.
Sin, the sad and fearful winter of the soul, kills the holy works which it finds there and, were it to continue always, never should life or vigour return. But as, on the approach of lovely spring, not only the new seeds which we cast into the earth, shoot up and bud, under the influence of this mild season of fecundity, every one according to its kind but also the old plants, which the bitterness of the preceding winter had wasted and withered, grow green again and take back their former life.
So sin being destroyed,and the grace of Divine Love coming back to the soul, not only the new affections, which the return of the sacred springtime brings, germinate and produce many merits and benedictions but also, the works faded away under the harshness of the winter of past sin, being delivered from their mortal enemy and reinvigorated and, as it were, resuscitated, flourish anew and fructify in merits for eternal life. …
God has promised an eternal recompense to the works of the just man but, if the just man turn away from His Justice by sin, God will no longer remember his justices, or the good works which he has done. But if, nevertheless, this poor man, after falling into sin, rises again and returns to Divine Love by penance, God will no longer remember his sin and, if He will no longer remember his sin, He will then remember his preceding good works and the recompense they had deserved, since sin, which alone can take them away from the Divine Memory, is effaced, abolished and annihilated.” – (Consoling Thoughts on God and Providence).
AnaStpaul 