Why do you not believe me?

Jesus asks the Jews: “Why do you not believe me”?  This Sunday’s gospel talks about faith as acceptance of, or the return to God. Returning to God!  Is it too late to return to God?

Many congregations are dwindling exponentially from within. These are folks who were active in their faith but for some reason stopped coming to church or stopped practicing. One such prodigal shared the following with me: “Does God want me back? I was a believer but fell away; I was angry at God, deliberately sinning for years; I don’t have faith anymore; I feel  like something prevents me from believing; I feel reprobate like Esau; I want to come back to God but feel like I have blown it and that He rejects me; I feel I’ve committed the unpardonable sin; I no longer feel His presence and I am dead spiritually; I don’t know if I can regain salvation, and I don’t think I can be forgiven…. Does God even want me back? How can I tell?”

So often, people are afraid to come back to church or to the Sacrament of Reconciliation because they feel that, since they have been gone for so long, there is no way back. When we have sinned and walked away from God, whether for a day or years, coming back seems difficult. The warmth and intimacy of our faith that we experienced when we first came to Christ seems not to be there. Coming back to God and coming back to church are two aspects of faith: individual and ecclesial (community). The individual aspect is reflected by, or seen in, “the human heart.” In the Old Testament the Lord says to his people “Return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2). “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”  (Jer 31:31) The “new covenant” is to be inscribed on the human heart by God Himself.  This covenant opens our heart and soul to God’s grace and truth. Man’s heart comes to center stage.  The human heart is a great mystery, for from the heart come good or evil thoughts.