‘Forgiveness is an act
of the will and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the
heart.’ Corrie ten Boom
Have you ever wondered what the difference was between St.
Peter and Judas? Both of them betrayed
Jesus, yet only one sought out forgiveness and became a great leader and
shepherd of the Church. Only one was humble enough to approach the Lord after
the Resurrection and meekly say, “I do believe, Lord.” And Jesus forgave him by
asking him three times, ‘do you love me?’
The power to ask
forgiveness is not talked about much in the news these days. People yell and scream at each other, no body
apologizes. We hurt someone’s feelings,
no body apologizes. People think it’s
their right to say what they want, to kill with words or guns and it’s their
right to free speech to not worry about how it hurts another person. It’s almost like apologizing has become like
a plague we must avoid. It would mean we were wrong, that we have to lower
ourselves, demean ourselves, and God forbid admit we might have been wrong.
Yet when nobody
apologizes, we die inside. Little by
little we become hardened and our souls darken, getting dirtier and it gets
easier to do more wrongs and be more hurtful.
Do we think we have to beg to receive mercy? All Peter did was answer Jesus question, the
same question three different times asked by Jesus. ‘Peter do you love me?’
It does take humility to be forgiven or to ask
forgiveness. It takes even more
fortitude and heart to forgive someone who hasn’t even said they were sorry,
yet Jesus did that too right from the cross. ‘Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do.’
Some people do it
too, without asking for an apology, without closing their hearts. They just
forgive, because that’s what Jesus did. Members
of a church did it in South Carolina. They forgave a man who murdered nine
members of their church community. They forgave
a man who had been so filled with hate that he killed nine people who had
invited him into their bible study group.
Yet he received forgiveness. I am
positive these people in this church were still hurting, still grieving over
the nine lost members, yet somehow they realized that by being like Jesus and
giving forgiveness it would help them to heal.
Do we think we are better than Jesus when we don’t ask
forgiveness, when we don’t forgive someone who has hurt us deeply? Forgiveness is an action that has
ramifications far beyond how it makes us feel. It’s like ripples in a pond when
someone forgives another person. It’s
like the sun shining out following a tornado, or a bright colorful rainbow
peeking out from the storm clouds to signal to the entire world that God is
there and everything is okay. Because
someone forgave, and someone said they were sorry.
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