Between God and the Sinner

A Reflection on the Second Reading for Sunday, August 13th, 2023:
​Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Romans
9.1-5

Brothers and sisters: I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are children of Israel, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Christ, who is over all, God be blessed forever. Amen.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

How many of us love someone who is a non-believer? Children we’ve raised to attend Mass, believe in God and look to the Church for community. Brothers and sisters who were raised as we were, attending Catholic school and participating in the sacraments. Parents who did their duty by raising their children up in the Church and who now feel little need to attend themselves. Friends who seem to believe that the practice of faith is a crutch for the weak-minded and the naïve. 

I dare say every one of us knows and loves a non-believer. Moreover, every one of us has struggled to figure out how best to introduce or re-introduce the topic of faith. We don’t want to appear judgmental, condemnatory, forceful. We don’t want to anger or upset them and ourselves. Sometimes we don’t speak up because we can’t bear to hear for ourselves exactly what they think of the saving faith we cherish. And yet, at Alpha or Mass, when we hear the grateful testimony of someone whose faith is alive or reignited, we think, “If only my beloved would experience this!” 

So what do we do?

Saint Paul, in the Second Reading for this coming Sunday, is facing the same situation. On the one hand, he sees his Jewish kindred, the children of Jacob to whom God has given “the law, the worship, and the promises,” and he is anguished that they do not believe in Christ. Saint Paul cries out, I would give my soul for the salvation of these people! On the other hand, he sees the Gentiles who are embracing Jesus as the Messiah for the first time in their history. And he says, if only my beloved would experience this!

Lately, I have been reading Pope Francis’s book The Name of God Is Mercy. It is a beautiful reflection on the love of God, the vast oceans of the mercy He pours down from heaven upon believers and non-believers alike. And I think, there is hope! For who can know the heart of God? Who can know the heart of our beloved non-believers? And I cling to the consolatory saying: no one knows what is between God and the sinner.

And so, when I feel anguish for the non-believers whom I love, when I worry that they are turning away their eternal reward, when I feel sick at the thought that we will not be together in heaven, I reflect on God’s mercy. I trust in God‘s mercy, God who loves my beloved non-believers with perfection and constancy. God who loves me and knows my anguish and who will work in and through me to bring my dear ones back to him for my sake, for their sake, and for His glory. I think of Saint Monica who prayed for years for her son Saint Augustine and who entrusted to God’s infinite mercy Saint Augustine’s conversion.

Let us pray then to God, whose name is Mercy. And, as Saint Paul says elsewhere, “Do not be anxious” (Phil. 4:6). Let us love our non-believers. Let us trust in God’s perfect plan for them. And let us wait in patient expectation for the blessing of belief for our non-believers.

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Donna Davis

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