Looking at Forgiveness

Today I was reminded about a part of the Our Father.  At my church's penance service we said the Our Father together. There I was being forgiven of my sins, and a part from a retreat that I had attended recently and Fr. David Mary said a part of the Our Father that really hit home. he said: "...Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against..."

What is this saying someone might ask.  I think that sometimes we say this prayer and we just hear the first part: "forgive us our trespasses." and we don't listen out for the second half.  How can we ask for forgiveness when we don't forgive others or ourselves.

I am reminded about a part in a book I read about something like this. I wish I remembered the book that it was in because it was a really powerful little excerpt.  about 3ish years ago I was having trouble forgiving myself, but it was easy to forgive others who had done me wrong.  In this book it talked about reconciliation and forgiveness.  I knew that God had forgiven me, but somehow it was still in the back of my mind always.  But this book talked about how if we know that we have been forgiven, we need to get off of out pedestals that  we have placed ourselves upon.

God is all powerful, God is merciful, God is our Father who wants nothing better from us, then our very best.  He sets our bar high, but not too high that we will never be able to reach it.  If God is the master of the universe, and we know that he has forgiven us for our past sins; saying that we can't forgive ourselves is almost like saying that we are better than God and that we should hold ourselves to a better standard.  But that isn't the case, Jesus gave us Reconciliation to make us stronger.

The retreat I recently went to I was the leader of a small group, and one of the students in the small group said something great about reconciliation and forgiveness.  "In Reconciliation, our slates aren't just washed clean. In reconciliation our slates are made stronger so that next time it will be harder to make an imprint upon them."

Forgiveness is not easy, but forgiving ourselves, and others is the only way that we can wash our slates clean, so we can make them stronger.  The battle has already been won, we just have to choose what side we want to be on.