Forgiveness
Thanks to the gift of faith, our awareness of our eternal destiny is awakened. The Word of God nourishes us daily, enlightening our understanding and dispelling the darkness of ignorance and error.
However, for this to take effect in one’s being, one’s sins must be forgiven because they weigh heavily on one’s life and obscure the relationship with God.
Through the death and resurrection of His son, God offers humanity forgiveness for their sins. It is an act of infinite love and mercy in which God takes on the sins of humanity to lift up fallen man.
When we receive forgiveness, we encounter God as a loving Father who absolves not only minor faults but also the most serious sins. Weighed down by guilt, man can rise again and learn to breathe freely.
Precisely the experience of a loving God who forgives can change our erroneous image of God. Thus, we can lose our fear of Him and regain trust in our Father.
The loss of trust in God is one of humanity’s greatest problems, preventing us from living healthily. One closes oneself off, building unnecessary walls and armor around one’s soul. This is not prudent resistance against enemy forces, which is necessary as long as we live in this world. Rather, it is unconscious blockages that keep the soul closed and prevent the light of God from penetrating it.
As a person experiences forgiveness, their responsibility increases. They become more aware of the destructive power of sin, and at the same time, they come to know God’s mercy more deeply. They realize that by sinning, they are rejecting God’s love. Therefore, they seek refuge in the sacrament of penance with greater humility and contrition. The forgiveness they receive is experienced as undeserved liberation and strength. In turn, this awakens an enormous gratitude in their heart, leading them to avoid sin more carefully and aspire to everything that pleases God.
Thus, a process of deeper healing begins as they assume responsibility in the metaphysical sense, that is, full responsibility for their life before God. They understand with contrition that every sin affects their loving relationship with their merciful Father and has repercussions on both their soul and their capacity to love others. Conversely, they increasingly recognize that the path to holiness increases the light of God within them.
Thus, man becomes increasingly aware of God’s vocation for him, and he finds profound peace in it. This activated relationship with God becomes the essence of life and diminishes the soul’s tendency toward distraction and fleeting things.
Then, the person faces life with all its challenges with greater awareness. The soul sees beyond itself and remembers those who do not yet know God and often live in sin.
This reality pains them, but knowledge of God’s mercy and desire to forgive motivates them to proclaim the gospel to others. The more the soul perceives its own inclination to sin and weakness, and the more it understands God’s loving search for His children, the greater the urgency to evangelize becomes.
At the same time, the soul’s forgiveness from God becomes an obligation to forgive others. If God canceled the debt that condemned us through the sacrifice of His Son (cf. Col 2:14), then we must also forgive those who are indebted to us.
At this point, the soul’s healing process advances further!
On the one hand, we escape the state of accusing another person, an accusation that binds us negatively to our debtor. Thus, we free ourselves not only from the burden of our separation from God but also from the bondage of a spirit of accusation that robs us of our freedom and spreads its poison again and again in our soul.
On the other hand, when we forgive, we open the door to freedom for the other person and remove the burden that, because of our accusation, still keeps them bound to us. This allows interpersonal relationships to heal, because where there is unforgiven guilt and accusation, there can be neither the necessary freedom nor deeper soul healing.
We see, then, that when God heals our souls, He also has other people in mind because man does not live alone, and the Lord’s love and forgiveness must be proclaimed to all of humanity.
Just as God loves His own, we must love others (cf. Jn 13:34). Therefore, God grants the grace to learn to love as He loves to the soul that opens itself to faith, thus beginning the healing process.
God’s forgiveness, which enables us to forgive others as well, is key to the healing of the soul and is a message of salvation for all humanity.
God wants to forgive! He does not keep track of people’s sins, nor does He want His children to be at the mercy of sin’s darkness. God wants to heal them!
His heart is wide open to us! We can confidently turn to Him and receive His forgiveness.
