Forgive Us Our Trespasses
One
CCC 2838
Our petition will not be heard unless we have first met the strict requirement of forgiving others
2840
Now – and this is daunting – this outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us...
In refusing to forgive our brothers and sisters, our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father’s merciful love; but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace.
Two
Christian prayer extends to the forgiveness of enemies (CCC 2844)
Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive, as we had during the war. And then, to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible. ‘That sort of talk makes them sick,’ they say. And half of you already want to ask me, ‘I wonder how you’d feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew?’ So do I. I wonder very much. Just as when Christianity tells me that I must not deny my religion even to save myself from death by torture, I wonder very much what I should do when it came to the point. I am not trying to tell you in this book what I could do—I can do precious little—I am telling you what Christianity is. I did not invent it. And there, right in the middle of it, I find ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us.’ There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven. There are no two ways about it. C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity, Chapter 7 on Forgiveness
Three
I can hate the evil a person has done. I do not need to justify their evil actions to forgive and love them.
I can love, that is, I can want good for them, even while hating the evil they have done.
We do this to ourselves all the time and we are called to love others as we love ourselves.
So if I can hate the evil I have done and still love myself – that is – I want good for myself, then I can hate the evil others have done and still forgive and love them. Again, love does not mean like, it means to want good for them.
Four
C.S. Lewis makes it clear – Love does not mean feeling good about a person; it is to want good for them. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not. I admit that this means loving people who have nothing lovable about them. But then, has oneself anything lovable about it? You love it simply because it is yourself. God intends us to love all selves in the same way and for the same reason: but He has given us the sum ready worked out in our own case to show us how it works. We have then to go on and apply the rule to all the other selves. Perhaps it makes it easier if we remember that that is how He loves us. Not for any nice, attractive qualities we think we have, but just because we are the things called selves. For really there is nothing else in us to love: creatures like us who actually find hatred such a pleasure that to give it up is like giving up beer or tobacco…
Five
I do not have to like a person or be friends with them; yet at the same time I can forgive them, pray for them and want good things for them.
CCC 2843 tells us
God does not expect us to not feel pain when we are offended
· Nor does he expect us to forget what has been done
But these feelings and memories must not prevent us from
1. Forgiving those who have wronged us
2. Praying for them
3. Acting with charity toward them
In fact, by doing good to the one who harmed us
· Will transform our feelings
· From bad to good
Try praying for a person you cannot forgive for a while. Pray for them in this decade, or at Mass. If you are really having a hard time – then say the Hail Mary and when you get to the part where we say “Pray for us sinners” insert your name and their name and your hatred will eb, forgiveness will flow and you just might even start to feel better about that person.