‘Forgive us our trespasses’

Extract

On the four Sundays of Advent the Family Mass at Blackfriars, Oxford, was televised live on BBC 1 with Herbert McCabe preaching on the theme of hope. The Catholic Truth Society of London will shortly be publishing all four of his sermons as a pamphlet. The first focused on prayer, the expression of hope in our personal lives, the second on hope for the whole world, the third on contrition as an expression of hope, and the last on mourning as an expression of hope. Here we are publishing the third, broadcast on Gaudete Sunday.

Take this scenario: I sin and so I offend God. He is angry with me, and I fear the wrath of God. Then I kneel before him and beg for his forgiveness, saying that I know I have done wrong and do not deserve his friendship; but will he take me back all the same? Then the wrath of God is appeased; he changes his mind and is no longer angry with me.

Now this is a perfectly good story, or picture, of God and ourselves. If we are going to imagine God at all we should sometimes imagine him as very angry—especially angry about injustice to his special people, the poor and the helpless. This is a very important image of God, but it is one image. We have to set this image alongside the image of the God who relents, the God who endures our sin and forgives us all the same.