As we focus this Lent on the topic of Forgiveness, we want to provide you with some opportunities for further reflection. Each week we will provide a simple exercise for you to engage in some prayerful reflection on some aspect of the topic of forgiveness. We encourage you to take a few minutes out of your day, invite the Holy Spirit to be your guide, and slowly consider the quotation about forgiveness and/or the accompanying Bible passages. Come back to them as often as you’d like that week. A new reflection will be available each Monday as part of a regular email we’ll be sending during the season of Lent.
This is the final week of Lent and the final week of these reflections. We hope you’ve found them to be helpful. If you have, could you let us know? Thanks! Email cindy@lacanadapc.org
Lenten Reflections on Forgiveness*
Choose a quote or Bible passage and use the process below to prayerfully reflect on it. Throughout the week you can reflect on the other quotations/passages or keep coming back to the same one.
Take several deep breaths to slow yourself down and help you move from your day’s agenda to this time with God.
Prayerfully ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Read the text slowly, a few words at a time, pausing attentively, noticing what stands out to you and what emotions are evoked.
Read the text two more times in the same manner, pausing between each reading to allow time for the words to resonate. Pay attention to any “nudgings” you sense from the Holy Spirit. You may wish to note your thoughts in a journal.
End your time of reflection with a prayer of gratitude.
Week 6 – Quotations and Passages
We do not really know how to forgive until we know what it is to be forgiven. Therefore, we should be glad that we can be forgiven by our brothers. It is our forgiveness of one another that makes the love of Jesus for us manifest in our lives, for in forgiving one another we act towards one another as He has acted towards us. (Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude)
Prayer Before the Prayer
I want to be willing to forgive
But I dare not ask for the will to forgive
In case you give it to me
And I am not yet ready
I am not yet ready for my heart to soften
I am not yet ready to be vulnerable again
Not yet ready to see that there is humanity in my tormentor’s eyes
Or that the one who hurt me may also have cried
I am not yet ready for the journey
I am not yet interested in the path
I am at the prayer before the prayer of forgiveness
Grant me the will to want to forgive
Grant it to me not yet but soon… (Desmond & Mpho Tutu, The Book of Forgiving)
Perhaps more to the point, however, is our need to forgive for our own sakes. Every human soul has a right to be free from hate, and we claim our rightful inheritance when we forgive people who hurt us unfairly, even if their intentions were pure. (Lewis Smedes, Forgive and Forget)
Then Jesus took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:27-28)
When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:33-34a)
He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13-14)
* Thank you to Jenny Maseredjian from LCPC’s Contemplative Ministries Team for helping provide this reflection exercise and quotations.
Lenten Reflections on Forgiveness*
Choose a quote or Bible passage and use the process below to prayerfully reflect on it. Throughout the week you can reflect on the other quotations/passages or keep coming back to the same one.
Take several deep breaths to slow yourself down and help you move from your day’s agenda to this time with God.
Prayerfully ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Read the text slowly, a few words at a time, pausing attentively, noticing what stands out to you and what emotions are evoked.
Read the text two more times in the same manner, pausing between each reading to allow time for the words to resonate. Pay attention to any “nudgings” you sense from the Holy Spirit. You may wish to note your thoughts in a journal.
End your time of reflection with a prayer of gratitude.
Week 5 – Quotations and Passages
Here we have come back to the compassion that must be formed in one’s own heart, a compassion that comes out of a deep experience of solidarity, in which one recognizes that the evil, sin, and violence which one sees in the world and in the other, are deeply rooted in one’s own heart. Only when you want to confess this and want to rely on the merciful God who can bring good out of evil are you in a position to receive forgiveness and also to give it to other men and women who threaten you with violence. (Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton: Contemplative Critic)
A very important but difficult piece of renewing relationships is accepting responsibility for our part in any conflict. If we have a relationship in need of repair, we must remember that the wrong is not usually all on one side, and we are more easily able to restore relations when we look at our contribution to a conflict. (Desmond & Mpho Tutu, The Book of Forgiving)
Instead, we need to be modeling for our children the “three h’s”—honesty, humility, and humor—which will allow us to cope with our imperfections and extend that same forbearance to others. Compassion and forgiveness are far more powerful virtues than even a “steady-state” maturity (if such a thing actually exists), and our family systems provide the perfect laboratory in which those alchemical virtues can be produced. (Cynthia Bourgeault, “Compassion and Forgiveness: Dealing with Family Wounds”)
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. (Martin Luther King Jr.)
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. (Matthew 6:14)
Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. (Luke 6:37)
* Thank you to Jenny Maseredjian from LCPC’s Contemplative Ministries Team for helping provide this reflection exercise and quotations.
Lenten Reflections on Forgiveness*
Choose a quote or Bible passage and use the process below to prayerfully reflect on it. Throughout the week you can reflect on the other quotations/passages or keep coming back to the same one.
Take several deep breaths to slow yourself down and help you move from your day’s agenda to this time with God.
Prayerfully ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Read the text slowly, a few words at a time, pausing attentively, noticing what stands out to you and what emotions are evoked.
Read the text two more times in the same manner, pausing between each reading to allow time for the words to resonate. Pay attention to any “nudgings” you sense from the Holy Spirit. You may wish to note your thoughts in a journal.
End your time of reflection with a prayer of gratitude.
Week 4 – Quotations and Passages
Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family. (Henri J.M. Nouwen)
Let’s ask for the grace to let go of those grudges and hurts we hold on to. How else will we ever be free? In forgiveness, we live up to our true and deepest dignity. We then operate by a power and a logic not our own. We live out of the True Self and not just the tiny self that is always offended and complaining. Without forgiveness nothing new happens, and we remain frozen in a small past. (Richard Rohr)
Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future. (Lewis Smedes)
Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or our loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. It is not about patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong. True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even sometimes make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but in the end it is worthwhile, because in the end only an honest confrontation with reality can bring real healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only superficial healing. (Desmond Tutu)
As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Colossians 3:12-13)
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:31-32)
* Thank you to Jenny Maseredjian from LCPC’s Contemplative Ministries Team for helping provide this reflection exercise and quotations.
Lenten Reflections on Forgiveness*
Each week we will provide some quotations and Bible passages. Choose one and use the process below to prayerfully reflect on it. Throughout the week you can reflect on the other quotations/passages or keep coming back to the same one.
Take several deep breaths to slow yourself down and help you move from your day’s agenda to this time with God.
Prayerfully ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Read the text slowly, a few words at a time, pausing attentively, noticing what stands out to you and what emotions are evoked.
Read the text two more times in the same manner, pausing between each reading to allow time for the words to resonate. Pay attention to any “nudgings” you sense from the Holy Spirit. You may wish to note your thoughts in a journal.
End your time of reflection with a prayer of gratitude.
Week 3 – Quotations and Passages
As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison. (Nelson Mandela)
Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness. (Corrie Ten Boom, Clippings from My Notebook)
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. (Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive and Forget: Healing the Hurts We Don't Deserve)
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. (Martin Luther King Jr.)
Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:31-32)
Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called—that you might inherit a blessing. (1 Peter 3:9)
* Thank you to Jenny Maseredjian from LCPC’s Contemplative Ministries Team for helping provide this reflection exercise and quotations.
Lenten Reflections on Forgiveness*
Each week we will provide some quotations and Bible passages. Choose one and use the process below to prayerfully reflect on it. Throughout the week you can reflect on the other quotations/passages or keep coming back to the same one.
Take several deep breaths to slow yourself down and help you move from your day’s agenda to this time with God.
Prayerfully ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Read the text slowly, a few words at a time, pausing attentively, noticing what stands out to you and what emotions are evoked.
Read the text two more times in the same manner, pausing between each reading to allow time for the words to resonate. Pay attention to any “nudgings” you sense from the Holy Spirit. You may wish to note your thoughts in a journal.
End your time of reflection with a prayer of gratitude.
Week 2 – Quotations and Passages
I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him. (C.S. Lewis)
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
If the unity of Christians in One Body makes the Church a sign of God in the world, and if men [and women] tend unfortunately to conflict and division by reason of their weakness, selfishness and sin, then the will to reconciliation and pardon is necessary if the Church is to make God visible in the world. Nor can this pardon, this communion in forgiveness, remain interior and invisible. It must be clearly manifest. So the mystery of the Church demands that Christians love one another in a visible and concrete way... Christ will not be visible to the world in His Church except in proportion as Christians seek peace and unity with one another and with all [humanity]. But since conflict is inevitable, unity cannot be maintained except in great difficulty, with constantly renewed sacrifice, with lucid honesty, openness, humility, the readiness to ask forgiveness and to forgive. (Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude)
He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossian 1:13-14)
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. (Matthew 5:7)
* Thank you to Jenny Maseredjian from LCPC’s Contemplative Ministries Team for helping provide this reflection exercise and quotations.