“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

“When you forgive some deeper, divine generosity takes you over.” John O’Donahue

The word “love” does not appear in the Lord’s Prayer.  Have you ever noticed that?  Nowhere does Jesus, as He is teaching the model prayer, mention love.  That seemed highly unusual to me until I realized that He uses another word that conveys almost the same meaning.  That word is forgiveness.

Without love, one cannot forgive.  Without forgiveness, one cannot love.  The two go hand-in-hand.  There are three objects who are the recipients of love and forgiveness.

The first and most obvious, is someone who has hurt or harmed us.  It’s easy to think of who that person is, isn’t it?  It might be someone from our far distant past or maybe from the recent present.  It could be someone who was a complete stranger, or a person who was close to us, near and dear to our hearts.  In that case the hurt we feel is perhaps compounded with a sense of betrayal. That person became our Judas.  It is pointless to wait or insist upon an apology, and impossible to rectify the situation.  Our hearts are filled with disappointment, disgust and even disdain for the person.  Whoever it was or is, the wounds linger.  Though they heal, the scars remain.  There is no “making it right”. All we can do is forgive.  O’Donahue writes, “If you are really disappointed in someone and you become embittered, you become incarcerated inside that feeling.  Only the grace of forgiveness can break the straight logic of hurt and embitterment.”  Without love and forgiveness we become inmates of a prison of our own making.  The only way to break out of this prison is to pray for love and forgiveness, and then practice it.

The second person whom we find difficult to forgive is God.  Yes, God.  It is human nature to blame God for whatever misfortune befalls us.  “God, how could you let this happen to me?”  “God, how could you take them from me?”  The lament of a broken heart often finds its landing place in the lap of God.  When we walk down the road of endlessly examining why something happened, it is easy to end up at the dead end of disdain for the Divine.  God becomes our scapegoat.  This is why some have turned away from God completely.  There is no reconciling how an all-loving God could allow such a calamity.  The only way to avoid this trap is to pray for love and forgiveness.

The third person, and arguably most difficult to love and forgive, is ourselves.  In my experience I’ve found that the most unloving and unforgiving people are those who I am convinced don’t believe that God loves them simply for who they regardless of what they’ve done, and therefore are incapable of not only receiving God’s forgiveness, but passing it on to others.  I speak from personal experience as there have been dark times in my life when I have not felt worthy of God’s love and forgiveness, and therefore considered others unworthy of mine.  I wonder what is it, dear friend, that might make you question God’s love for you?  I would like to remind you of the most basic and fundamental message for life and faith:  God loves you!  God loves you deeply and fiercely and ferociously.  And nothing that you ever have done, no matter how odious it might seem to you, can change God’s heart about you.  God loves you and forgives you.  And the only way to fully believe and embrace this love is to forgive yourself.

There is a love-filled prayer that I’d like to share with you. It is the Prayer of St. Francis.  You might be familiar with it.

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me show love.

Where there is offense, let me bring pardon.

Where there is discord, let me bring union.

Where there is error, let me bring truth.

Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.

Where there is despair, let me bring hope.

Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.

O Master, let me not seek as much to be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand,

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that one receives, It is in self-forgetting that one finds, It is in pardoning that one is pardoned, and it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.”