God’s will is to save us, and nothing pleases him more than our coming back to him with true repentance. The heralds of truth and the ministers of divine grace have told us this from the beginning, repeating it in every age. Indeed, God’s desire for our salvation is the primary and preeminent sign of his infinite goodness. It was precisely in order to show that there is nothing closer to God’s heart that the divine Word of God the Father, with untold condescension, lived among us in the flesh, and did, suffered, and said all that was necessary to reconcile us to God the Father, when we were at enmity with him, and to restore us to the life of blessedness from which we had been exiled. He healed our physical infirmities by miracles; he freed us from our sins, many and grievous as they were, by suffering and dying, taking them upon himself as if he were answerable for them, sinless as he was. He also taught us in many different ways that we should wish to imitate him by our own kindness and genuine love for one another.

He instructs us in divine justice and goodness, telling us to be like our heavenly Father, holy, perfect and merciful. “Forgive,” he says: “and you will be forgiven. Behave toward other people as you would wish them to behave toward you.”

—Maximus the Confessor, Letter 11