Can we forgive? (Robert Schreiter CPPS)

    Where might we stand now, years after 9/11? When we think about perhaps forgiving something as terrible as this, we need to attend to the teaching of Jesus closely. 

    First of all, it is God who forgives sin and wrongdoing. Only God has sufficient perspective to grasp the extent of damage that sin and wrongdoing create in our lives and in the lives of those against whom we sin. 

    In the act of forgiving, we participate in God’s larger act of forgiveness. Forgiveness is something that comes from God it is a gift of God to us. If we listen closely to Jesus’s words, we will discover that. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’s first word on the cross is about forgiveness: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do ” (Luke 23:34). We often read this as Jesus forgiving his executioners. But in actual fact, Jesus is calling on God, his Father, to forgive them. Jesus is still in the midst of his suffering. He cannot forgive his executioners for something they have not yet completed. But he can call on his Father to forgive. 

    This act of Jesus can be a great source of comfort to us when we struggle to forgive but cannot. We can call upon God, who sees all things, to forgive. And that is a prayer that we, too, someday may be able to forgive. 

--Robert Schreiter CPPS 

Image source: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/can-we-forgive-9-11/
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