Sometimes we may be tempted to despair because of our own sins or the sins of others. We may think to ourselves that God won't ever forgive us, or that someone we love is outside the bounds of his mercy.
The good news is that God's patience is not like ours. and he is willing to extend his mercy to us at any time.
Boundless mercy
St. Jerome in a commentary on the book of Joel encourages us to never despair of God's mercy:
I bid you not to tear your garments but rather to rend your hearts which are laden with sin. Like wine skins, unless they have been cut open, they will burst of their own accord. After you have done this, return to the Lord your God, from whom you had been alienated by your sins. Do not despair of his mercy, no matter how great your sins, for great mercy will take away great sins.
Furthermore, he explains how God is not impatient the way we are and is not bound by our human experience of mercy:
For the Lord is gracious and merciful and prefers the conversion of a sinner rather than his death. Patient and generous in his mercy, he does not give in to human impatience but is willing to wait a long time for our repentance. So extraordinary is the Lord's mercy in the face of evil, that if we do penance for our sins, he regrets his own threat and does not carry out against us the sanctions he had threatened.
This is a great reminder for us, as we can be tempted to think that God will never forgive us, especially as we continually fall into sin.
It can also be tempting to think that one of our loved ones, who has fallen away from the Church, will never come back and be reconciled with God.
Yet, our own repentance, or the repentance of another, may not occur in "our time." We do not know all the ways of the Lord and his plan is usually hidden from us.
What we need to remember is that God's mercy is boundless and he is constantly pursuing the sinner, always ready to receive us into his loving arms.
