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Daily Inspiration Quote by Pope Francis

"God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy"

About this Quote

Francis flips the usual guilt script: the bottleneck in grace isn’t God’s patience, it’s our stamina for asking. In one clean reversal, he moves the drama of forgiveness away from a cosmic judge and onto ordinary human psychology - shame, pride, and exhaustion. The line works because it refuses the comforting caricature of an angry deity who must be persuaded. Instead, it sketches a God whose mercy is almost boringly reliable, while exposing how quickly we get bored, embarrassed, or resentful about needing it.

The subtext is pastoral and tactical. Francis is arguing against a performance-based spirituality where mercy is rationed, earned, or administered by gatekeepers. If God “never tires,” then no priest, institution, or inner critic gets to declare you beyond repair. At the same time, he’s diagnosing why people fall away: not because they stop believing in forgiveness, but because they stop wanting to be the kind of person who needs it. Seeking mercy means admitting dependence, reopening wounds, and surrendering the fantasy of self-sufficiency. That can feel harder than carrying private guilt.

Context matters: this is Francis’s signature emphasis, shaped by his Jesuit sensibility and his pontificate’s push to re-center confession, accompaniment, and “a Church that is a field hospital.” It’s also a quiet rebuke to cultures - religious and secular - that treat failure as a brand stain. Mercy here isn’t a loophole; it’s an invitation to keep returning, even when your own capacity for hope runs out.

Quote Details

TopicGod
Source
Unverified source: Angelus Address (17 March 2013) (Pope Francis, 2013)
Text match: 85.00%   Provider: Cross-Reference
Evidence:
Primary source (official Vatican transcript). Pope Francis delivered his first Angelus as pope in St. Peter’s Square on 17 March 2013. In the address he says, in substance: God/the Lord never tires of forgiving, but we tire of asking forgiveness. This appears to be the earliest official publicati...
Other candidates (2)
... Pope Francis , " God never tires of forgiving us ; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy . " 1 1 Pope Fra...
Pope Francis (Pope Francis) compilation41.7%
s never tire of asking forgiveness let us henceforth entrust this year to the mother of mercy th
FeaturedThis quote was our Quote of the Day on July 29, 2023
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Francis, Pope. (2026, January 11). God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/god-never-tires-of-forgiving-us-we-are-the-ones-172299/

Chicago Style
Francis, Pope. "God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy." FixQuotes. January 11, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/god-never-tires-of-forgiving-us-we-are-the-ones-172299/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy." FixQuotes, 11 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/god-never-tires-of-forgiving-us-we-are-the-ones-172299/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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Pope Francis

Pope Francis (born December 17, 1936) is a Pope from Argentina.

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