Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples." He said to them, "When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us, and do not subject us to the final test."
REFLECTION
“Forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us.”
St John Paul II called "forgiveness a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil". It is one of the most difficult things to do because if we wait for feelings to clear we might find ourselves never forgiving the words spoken in careless talk, the injury, the loss.
God teaches us to place a condition on His forgiveness. God alone forgives sins. He forgives us when we apologize halfheartedly or if we keep offending Him . So if we wait to forgive until we are convinced the offender's apologies are sincere, or worse, he never asks for forgiveness and keeps offending, are we asking God to do the same with us?
We remember either not being forgiven or not forgiving . We either receive or give the cold shoulder, the silent treatment, the anger, dropped invitations, gossiping and the resentment. How easy to see our sins as trifling and forgivable but the faults of others are glaring at us.
So we are to forgive as God forgives, love as He loves. When we forgive we should act as God does. We are forgiven as we have been forgiven.
May God melt and enkindle our hardened hearts to forgive one another. How can we say we love God, yet hate our neighbor?
Psalm 130
“If you, O Lord, kept a record of our sins, O Lord, who would stand upright? But with you there is forgiveness so that you may be revered. ….For with the Lord there is kindness, as well as plenteous redemption.”
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