Friday, September 9, 2011

God Asks Us to Forgive

When you attend Mass there is a good chance that either love or forgiveness will be mentioned. So important are these two themes that we need to be reminded constantly, to be reassured that both are beneficial to us, to be encouraged to have the confidence to forgive, to love our neighbor.

Forgiving someone goes beyond the acceptance of a verbal apology. Forgiving someone goes beyond the verbal response. Forgiving when it is true begins in the soul. Forgiveness requires both a spiritual and an emotional letting go. Forgiveness requires prayer, reflection, patience. We can ask God for guidance and help. God provides assistance; Christ Jesus provides lessons.

The secular world likes conflict, unrest, anxiety. The secular world likes to divide people. Mistakes happen. Pain finds us. Sometimes people are malicious and try to incite chaos and mayhem. Sometimes accidents happen. Holding grudges, seeking revenge often creates more problems for us. Two rude acts equal two rude acts. One rude act does not magically disappear.

God deserves a preeminent place in your life. Typing that is easier than doing it. Our lives are filled with many competing items and events. There is not enough time to do all of the things that we want to do. We want more time for prayer, more time to do God’s work. Taking the time to look at our lives, at our conflicts, arguments coolly, objectively requires a spiritual strength, a powerful faith in God.

Forgiving is forgiving, wiping the slate clean, erasing all bad memories, deleting the pain. Forgiving is forgetting. Forgiving requires humility, compassion. As we forgive each other, we extend and share charity with each other. In life bad things will happen, that is a given. The bad does not have to be remembered or preserved in our brains.

As Christians our gaze needs to always be looking up toward the kingdom of heaven. Our lives can be examples of social justice, fairness, and love if we desire. Depending upon the offense, forgiving seems out of reach. Depending upon our relationship with God, forgiving remains out of reach. True, honest forgiveness can be difficult to discover, to extend. If we are able to achieve forgiveness, a moment of divine peace, divine grace will spread from our soul, to our heart, to our mind. Forgiveness asks us to forget our earthly body, our earthly concern and to think and behave like God. Forgiveness shifts our concern from ourselves to those who have harmed us. Our prayers will include them, asking for their protection.

Forgiveness begins with communication to God, when we take the time to present our problems and concerns to God with honesty, truth. Our lives contain different levels of vulnerability, different levels of fear. Forgiveness occurs when we present everything to God and release it from our soul, from our heart, from our mind.

Forgiveness can lead to love. Forgiveness can lead to goodness, kindness, holiness. First we are asked to believe in God, to have faith and trust in God, to love God.

When God is preeminent in our lives forgiveness becomes easier.

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