The responsorial verse from Psalm 103 reminds us: “The Lord is kind and merciful.” It seems at times in this faith journey I have been blessed to walk that the Church and I can tend to restrict God’s infinite, unbounded, unconditional, undeserved mercy of God to flow freely to others. Like many others, I can find myself conflicted in guarding the truth of the Lord’s teachings and our responsibility as followers of the Lord to protect the deposit of faith with God’s merciful nature. The conflict comes in understanding the depth of mercy that God continues to show us through stories like The Prodigal Son, how, from our human viewpoint of what is “fair,” – why did the sinful actions of the son not result in God’s wrath – but instead he received God’s indiscriminate mercy. Why do we find it so hard to connect to this reality? I feel it’s partly because, as Fr. Rolheiser writes, “We have a legitimate concern over some important things: truth, justice, orthodoxy, morality, proper public form, proper sacramental preparation, fear of scandal, and concern for the ecclesial community that needs to absorb and carry the effects of sin.” But Fr. Rolheiser states, “Love always needs to be tempered by truth, even as truth must be moderated by love. However, sometimes our motives are less noble, and our hesitancy arises out of timidity, fear, jealousy, and legalism – the self-righteousness of the Pharisees or the hidden jealousy of the older brother of the prodigal son…we must risk proclaiming the prodigal character of God’s mercy. We must not spend God’s mercy as if it were ours to spend, dole out God’s forgiveness as if it were a limited commodity, put conditions on God’s love as if God were a narrow tyrant or a political ideology, or cut off cut access to God as if we were the keepers of the heavenly gates. We are not!” Jesus wanted every kind of person to come to him then, and he wants them to come to him now. God wants everyone to come to the unlimited waters of divine mercy regardless of morality, orthodoxy, lack of preparation, age, or culture.