So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.
I was giving a talk on the beauty of forgiveness to some lay faithful some weeks ago. A woman commented after the talk, “Forgiveness is easier said than done.” I agreed with her completely.
It is difficult to forgive those who have hurt us, especially when the offenders are not sorry or repentant. We may have lingering memories of our hurts to deal with. And the devil will do anything to keep us in the loop of unforgiveness. All these reasons, and more, make forgiveness seem impossible.
To help us forgive others, we must keep two things in our minds and hearts:
Firstly, forgiveness is necessary for a healthy life
The Book of Sirach shows that we cannot live good and fruitful lives without receiving and giving forgiveness. God will not forgive us our sins if we don’t forgive others: “The vengeful will suffer the Lord’s vengeance, for He remembers their sins in detail” (Sir. 28:1). When we don’t experience divine forgiveness or communicate it to others, we live in hopeless fear and crippling sadness.
Even our prayer becomes useless when we are not open to forgive others, as Scripture states, “Forgive your neighbor’s injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven” (Sir. 28:2). Lack of forgiveness becomes a block to our effective prayer.
We also cannot receive healing from God when we are unforgiving, for how “could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the Lord?” (Sir. 28:3) We live in pain and anguish as long as we close our hearts to forgiveness.
We cannot resist sin when we nurture unforgiveness. “Remember your last days, set enmity aside; remember death and decay, and cease from sin” (Sir. 28:6). Unforgiveness keeps us stuck in the past such that we neither fight sin in the present moment nor prepare ourselves for the fullness of life with God in heaven.
What a pathetic life—no divine forgiveness and healing, ineffective prayer, slavery to sin, bondage to the past. All these because we choose unforgiveness.
Secondly, forgiveness is possible
If our Lord Jesus Christ commands us to forgive others “from our hearts,” then forgiveness is possible by His grace. Peter, obviously reflecting on the difficulty of forgiveness, puts a limit and condition to his forgiveness when he asked Jesus, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus replied with a parable about the unforgiving servant who received complete forgiveness from the king but refused to give forgiveness to a servant who owed him a very small amount. Jesus ended the parable with these words, “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart” (Mt. 18:21-35).
To forgive from the heart means to forgive others completely and always. Here are 6 steps to help us forgive others from our hearts:
1. Receive God’s Forgiveness
Firstly, we must allow God to forgive all our sins. God also imputes His love into our hearts when He forgives us for our sins. We are empowered by God’s forgiving love to communicate this same forgiveness to others. Jesus alone can demand that we forgive from our hearts because He has cleansed our hearts by His blood and infused His love into our hearts.
Our first step in forgiving others completely and always is to be truly sorry for all our sins and to confess them to God, especially through the sacrament of Reconciliation. This divine love will impel us to share this forgiveness with others.
2. Believe In and Be Grateful for His Forgiveness
Secondly, we must believe that God has forgiven us for our sins and be truly grateful for His forgiveness. Only believing and grateful hearts will be willing to share with others the forgiveness they have received from God.
There is no way that we can bring forgiveness to others while we live in shame, regrets, or guilt about our past sins. How can we give to others what we do not have in our hearts?
3. Forgive Yourself
Thirdly, we must forgive ourselves for all our sins. This means that we must take responsibility for our sins, accept God’s forgiveness as a pure gift, and be ready to begin again with greater trust in the mercy of God and less trust in ourselves.
We can’t forgive others while condemning ourselves for our past sins as if God has not forgiven us already.
4. See Others As Brothers and Sisters in Jesus
Fourthly, we must practice seeing others as our brothers and sisters in Christ. Jesus Christ shed His blood for each and every one of us. He owns all now. In the words of St. Paul, “For this is why Christ died and came to life, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living” (Rom. 14:9).
We cannot forgive when we see others as complete strangers, unrelated to us and to Jesus who died for all. The more that we see His blood on all souls, including our own souls, the more that we are moved to forgive all persons for His sake.
5. Ask for the Grace to Forgive
Fifthly, we must beg God for the grace to forgive. The desire to forgive, as well as the resolve and strength to do so, are all from God. Only God can sustain us in this call to forgive from our hearts. The more that we beg for the grace to forgive and offer prayers for those who have hurt us, the more that we experience the divine motion to offer the gift of forgiveness to others as God has forgiven us.
6. Firmly Decide to Forgive
Lastly, we must make a firm decision to forgive others as God has forgiven us in Christ. The merciful love of Jesus becomes the source and the image of our own forgiving love for others.
Jesus made a decision in the height of His anguish to forgive those unrepentant men nailing Him to the cross. He made this decision even when it did not feel good and the wicked men were not remorseful.
By His grace, we too can make a similar decision to forgive all persons completely and always no matter how we feel or their lack of remorse.
The Eucharist is our privileged encounter with Jesus Christ, the God who has forgiven us all our sins and continues to forgive us. He knows very well our struggle to forgive and He alone makes true forgiveness possible.
If we allow Him to forgive us always and completely, we too can forgive others completely and always because we would then be forgiving them from our hearts transformed by His merciful love. This is the type of forgiveness that makes our lives truly worth living.
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!
Image from Wikimedia Commons
