Ave Maria Meditations
“Forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
“Because we have been forgiven, we know the way of forgiveness.”
When Jesus answered the Apostles’ plea by giving them the Lord’s prayer, He did not emphasize that we should love one another, but rather that we should forgive one another. I sometimes feel that many of us suffer from hidden anger, painful memories of slights, and worse, persecution that we can will to forgive. It seems to be a cultural trend today that there is always somebody to blame. If we are completely at a loss, there is always genetics and our parents!
It may well be true that each of us is wounded, but dwelling on the wounds and the scars and the hurt and the mutilations takes us straight back to self and away from God. What has happened to you and whose fault it is , is not really your affair. It is for you to ask God for the grace of a blanket forgiveness, forgiving without even knowing in what way you were damaged. If we cannot drop the desire to be justified, we are shutting ourselves off from God. Remember always this is not a matter of how you feel! Emotionally, you may be scarred forever by some betrayal, you may be unable to forget it. With all your heart, though, you cling to God and pray to forgive it.
Let me repeat, it is the will to forgive that matter. After all, God alone knows how deliberate or “evil” this betrayal was: have we not quite innocently in our own time damaged other people? The whole roiling mass of our pains and suspicions are antipathetic to the surrender to God that we desire in prayer. We choose Him, we choose to forgive as our Father in heaven forgives; and we trust Him to transform us into men and women who truly love.
About the feelings of hurt of betrayal we can do nothing. Or, rather, we can offer them actively and consciously to God. The more we pray, the more we become aware of our own need for forgiveness. Yet God, freely offering His forgiveness, is all too aware that we cannot accept its blessing if we still harbor rancor against others in our hearts. In a sense, one of the reasons why we offer ourselves in prayer is to be forgiven, brought nearer the holiness of God and enabled by His grace to draw others into forgiveness.
Sr. Wendy Beckett
First Sorrowful Mystery of the Most Holy Rosary: The Agony in the Garden.
Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, Our Mother, please obtain for us, from your Son, Jesus, the grace of perfect contrition, so that we may grieve over our sins which made Him suffer.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” St Luke 23:34
Forgiveness = Humility (Understanding, forbearance, courage, love…..)
Ave Maria!
To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.
-St. Thomas Aquinas
“…O my God, I have repaid with ingratitude your many benefits. I detest my sins because they offend you, Who are deserving of all my love; I repent of them with my whole heart. Forgive me through the merits of Jesus Christ. Let me not die in my sins as I deserve.
O my God, because you are infinite Goodness and worthy of infinite love, I love you with my whole heart, and above all things. I love my neighbor as myself and forgive, for your sake, all who have injured me…”
(part of my nightly prayers…may it assist you as it has me. Be ‘little’!)
Remember, you won’t recieve the first part of the prayer, if you aren’t willing to do the second!
~for love of Jesus, and His Most Holy Mother.
Ave Maria!
Your prayers and sacrifices will be of great support to those who must stand and daily fight for the One True Faith. Good for you, ‘little’ Marie!
May God bless you and Mother Mary keep you.
Red,
May you always remain under the protection of Mary Immaculate’s mantle.
Ave Maria!
Dear Marie,
I was thinking of my grandfather this morning as I did my daily exercises in the park. He was a WWI veteran who served in France 1917-1919. He was wounded in battle and spent 6 months in hospital in Paris before returning home.
My grandfather was awarded a special medal for his courage in action, which is a story he himself never told us, but we have the medal and my own father told us what grandpa did that merited this special medal. An inspiring story it was, to say the least.
My grandfather was almost 5′ 7″ tall, and that was standing at attention. 🙂 Quite short in stature for an adult male. As I exercised this morning, I thought of him and his example. And thought of this motto, which I think well applies to my grandfather:
Be small, be true, be kind and loving, be strong, and be brave.
I am not physically small like my grandfather, but I hope to be granted the grace to imitate all of his virtues, of which humility, I believe, was perhaps the strongest one, and the one which led him to possess all the others — truth, kindness, gentleness, strength, and courage — all packed together in his humble, small body.
He had the biggest heart I’ve ever known in any man, yet in the eyes of the world, he seemed very ‘little’. He passed away over 25 years ago. His heroics were not known to many, except for those who were close to him within his family. My grandfather was not perfect — but to me, he was a giant of a man. Poor, kind, gentle, humble, faithful, true, strong, and brave. My little grandfather.
Thank you, Marie, for your prayers, and I can think of no place more blessed to be, than under the mantle of Our Holy Mother. Thank you for that prayer.
Ave Maria!
Red,
Thank you for sharing your beautiful story, with all of us. I have to giggle as I tell you that I am only 4’11” in height, but have the courage of an entire battalion of men! (Sometimes I get the courage and pride thing mixed up!)
By the way, I went through Basic Training in Fort Dix, NJ and was one of the outstanding trainees at the end of the 10 cycle….I beat the pants off most of the men!!!
O.K…..I’m losing all sense of humility….but it makes me grin to know this little 90 lb female could out shoot, out run, and out think most men! 🙂
God bless you, Red. Thanks for the communications! 🙂
Ave Maria!
Red,
I was justing thinking about what I typed above…my 10 weeks of Basic Training, over 30 years ago, was an experience I will never forget. I grew up hearing the words, “You’ll never amount to anything…”, and words like that. I began believing the very things I heard.
Then, ironically, (because of my size, and being female) I went through mitliary training at Dix right after high school. I threw live grenades, shot M16’s, I fired an automatic machine gun, repelled from a very high wall, served as point on marches, out ran most of the guys, and could do more push ups than all of the women in my squad…. (I did have a problem getting out of the fox holes ~ big grin) I came out as 1 of 11 outstanding trainees out of four squads in the end.
People can do a great deal of harm with their words. God didn’t bring us into the world to be dominated, to be submissive out of fear. God gave us life to love, Him, and everyone else. Life is to be lived with joy, not to be just lived.
I remind myself that evil men (and women) weren’t evil when they were babies. Somewhere in their lives something went very wrong. Either they weren’t loved themselves, or never learned how to love. They are to be pitied more than anything. They, I believe, are the poorest of the poor.
Forgiveness comes easily if we can be understanding first. I don’t claim it to be easy to forgive, but if we don’t we will be stuck in a spiritual mire.
God bless us, our country, and Holy Mother Church!
Ave Maria!
Marie,
Thanks for your story, too, Marie!
I recently came across this quote attributed to Einstein –
“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
There is a certain ring of truth to that! Unfortunately though, when some people grow up with that false sense of what love truly is and who they themselves truly are, without true conversion and change they tend to perpetuate and enforce those lies upon others. So the way to forgive is, like you say, to understand that person who is abusing or controlling, but also to do all that God gives you the grace to do in order to keep that person from hurting or damaging others.
So forgiving, in that light, becomes more also a responsibility given to us through the grace of understanding and love, to protect His truth and His creations from enduring evil treatment. One of the reasons we have armed forces is based on this greater good. At least with God, it should be for the protection of the truth and the greater good of all.
This also applies to our personal lives. And of course, all of us being imperfect can not go off like loose canons “enforcing” our own set of values upon those we believe to be doing wrong. God is the Creator. God is in control of all of His Creation. Not the creature.
That is also why being submissive and obedient to the Holy Father and the Magisterium of the Holy Catholic Church is not an option, it is a requirement in this life as we wage war against evil. In ourselves, in others, and throughout the world at large.
Forgiveness is a state of grace and requires the gift of the Holy Spirit, as you refered to, of understanding. Not only the individual who is perpetuating an evil cycle of life, but also in understanding all the importance of God’s order of things, and how our role is not to command, but rather, to serve and love and know God’s will. God is in control, God is the Commander in Chief, so to speak, but, He does require us to serve in His armed forces, the Church Militant, to resist and fight against the forces of evil in this world. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are all needed. Understanding being one of them. But a deep and piercing understanding which calls us to sacrifice and obedience, as well as kindness and gentleness. When Christ forgives us, our confession is only valid sacramentally when we are truly repentant.
So true forgiveness requires from us a deep desire to forgive and heal, but also it is a reminder that there is a battle that we are all called to be a part of in this life, and we must obediently follow the Commander.
The tricky part for fallen mankind, all of us, is that we too often want to do what we feel, or think, is the right thing, the best thing “according to my own interpretation”, without honestly and respectfully turning to God’s chosen authority, the Holy Catholic Church and the teachings of the Magisterium.
So in this way, true humility begins to take on more than just an ephemeral sense, or feeling, but rather is united with knowledge and understanding, and courage and strength, and all the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit.
Forgiveness is an act God requires of us, to forgive as we too have been forgiven. But for the act to be truly efficacious, it also must be received with a true knowledge of, and repentance for, having offended Him.
We can let go and let God, as the saying goes, in order to soothe our own pains and anguish, and sometimes that alone is what He calls us to do to be at peace. But there is also a call to stand and fight for His Truth and His Love. We are servants, soldiers in the Church Militant. When seriously wounded by evil, we must rest and heal. But after a time it may be that we will be called again, to fight. We are all called to the Cross, and to give up our life for the Kingdom of God. With the confusion, and defection, and infiltration of the enemy, found today within the the Church, it can at times take a very keen and attentive ear for a loyal soldier of Christ to hear the orders given by our Commander.