Forgiveness

Forgiveness

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

Matthew 6:12, NIV

One day Jeanne Zechmeister, a psychologist at Loyola University, observed a woman at Mass who recited the Lord’s Prayer with the rest of the congregants but very deliberately did not say the lines about forgiveness. Zechmeister was perplexed, saying, “The only thing that Jesus asks of us in the Lord’s Prayer is that we forgive others; the rest of the prayer is petition. I keep wondering why the woman would not say it. I’d like to talk to her.”^a

To forgive a person is to stop blaming him or her for a wrong, to bury the hatchet, and, in releasing our desire for revenge, to be released from anger. How does this take place? For our sake and for the sake of the next generation, it’s important that we know how to answer that question.

Lewis Smedes, author of The Art of Forgiving, has some helpful guidelines:

• Forgiving happens in stages: We rediscover the humanity of the person who wronged us, we surrender our right to get even, and we wish that person well.
• We forgive people only for what they do, never for what they are.
• We cannot forgive a wrong unless we first blame the person who wronged us.
• Forgiving is a journey; the deeper the wound, the longer the journey.
• Forgiving is not a way to avoid pain but to heal pain.
• Forgivers are not doormats. To forgive a person is not a signal that we are willing to put up with what he does.
• When we forgive, we walk in stride with the forgiving God.^b

Forgiving is hard work, but we are probably never more like God than when we forgive.

Father,

Learning to forgive is a challenge for all of us. Please give us your wisdom and the strength to obey your command to forgive others. Amen.