Furthermore…

A pretty challenging discussion of Forgiveness and the Our Father (”… and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…”) got underway on the Multiply.com domain which I haunt, and I weighed in with a reference to what is said in
the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I was asked what are my personal thoughts on the subject, so I came up with:
I must say that forgiveness is not something that I dwell on greatly. I guess I have not had a lot of hurt in my life to forgive. I guess I should thank God more than I do for this favor. I realize that there are many people carrying a heavy burden of hurt that was never neutralized, perhaps childhood abuse or being unjustly accused or convicted of something they did not do, and they can’t get past the sense that justice cries out because of how they were wronged, and forgiveness seems beyond them.
I say the Our Father (the Lord’s Prayer) very often, aloud at Mass as well, and what crosses my mind is that God forgives easily because of His greatness and Divine Mercy, but only until (”as”) we forgive graciously does he fully forgive us. As a Catholic I have often gone to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and had very horrible sins forgiven with ‘no problem’ so I have a sense of God’s forgiveness being overwhelmingly abundant and available.
As I was trying to put together some thoughts for this comment, I struck on a similarity between how we should forgive (generously and completely) to the way Mary surrendered to God’s will (generously and completely). “Easy for you to say” might come to someones mind and true, it seems easy to me, I guess because I have been spared terrible hurts by others. I tend to think in terms of a ‘leap’ of forgiveness, forgetting about justice, reparation and retaliation and all the accumulated baggage of the past. I realize that God’s grace is necessary to accomplish such a leap; it is beyond our human nature.