391. What does the acceptance of God’s mercy require from us?

391. What does the acceptance of God’s mercy require from us? 

(Comp 391) It requires that we admit our faults and repent of our sins. God himself by his Word and his Spirit lays bare our sins and gives us the truth of conscience and the hope of forgiveness.

“In brief”

(CCC 1870) "God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all" (Rom 11:32). 1870

To deepen and explain

(CCC 1846) The Gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God's mercy to sinners (Cf. Lk 15). The angel announced to Joseph: "You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" (Mt 1:21). The same is true of the Eucharist, the sacrament of redemption: "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Mt 26:28). (CCC 1847) "God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us" (St. Augustine, Sermo 169, 11, 13: PL 38, 923). To receive his mercy, we must admit our faults. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 Jn 8-9). 

Reflection

(CCC 1848) As St. Paul affirms, "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (Rom 5:20). But to do its work grace must uncover sin so as to convert our hearts and bestow on us "righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 5:21). Like a physician who probes the wound before treating it, God, by his Word and by his Spirit, casts a living light on sin: Conversion requires convincing of sin; it includes the interior judgment of conscience, and this, being a proof of the action of the Spirit of truth in man's inmost being, becomes at the same time the start of a new grant of grace and love: "Receive the Holy Spirit." Thus in this "convincing concerning sin" we discover a double gift: the gift of the truth of conscience and the gift of the certainty of redemption. The Spirit of truth is the Consoler (John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem, 31 § 2). 

(Next question: What is sin?)