S1E3 What Forgiveness Is Part 2

1. Today’s episode is the second in a four-part series called Understanding Forgiveness. In today’s episode, I discuss four more characteristics of forgiveness.
2. Forgiveness is our own responsibility. If we wait for the offender to ask for forgiveness first, we may never have an opportunity to forgive. Waiting for the offender to show remorse is surrendering our power and agency to the offender.
3. Forgiveness is allowing God to help us walk through the pain of the forgiveness process. Instead of moving away, it’s moving toward the thoughts and emotions that are rooted in the wound or past painful experience, what I call the pain story, and asking God/Jesus to accompany us there. You can have a three-part conversation with Jesus as you move toward him in your pain.
   1. First, tell him what happened. Jesus, so and so did this to me.
   2. Then tell him how you feel. I feel betrayed, brokenhearted, sad, furious, angry resentful, whatever you are feeling.
   3. Then ask him what you need. Jesus, I need you to help me through this. I need you to help me figure out a way to move forward. I need you to help me learn how to forgive this person. He hears all our prayers. Sit with Him for a while. He's patient, and he can take all of your emotions. Jesus is the Divine Physician. He has already suffered every imaginable wound we have suffered and He is with us in the present moment, waiting for us to invite him into our pain story. He knows our sorrow. We can trust in that.
4. Forgiveness is being willing to acknowledge the offender’s right to moral justice. Moral justice is the justice that belongs to Christ Himself. This is the hardest saying. God sees the heart of the person who committed the act, and only He knows the whole story. This doesn’t mean that we can’t desire and pursue criminal justice.
5. Forgiveness is allowing God’s grace to flow through us to the other person, making us their intercessor. The Catechism of the Catholic Church #2843 states, It is not in our power not to feel or forget the offense, but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming hurt into intercession. Our forgiveness may be what softens the heart of our offender, whether they are in a relationship with us or not. Pope St. John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan both forgave the men who attempted to kill them. Both perpetrators showed remorse afterward. St. Pope John Paul II taught us that the suffering we face in our pain story can be redemptive if we unite our suffering to Christ on the cross. This, my friends, is a gift we as Christians can treasure.

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Remember Friend, Forgiveness is for You.