Through the gift of faith, the true transcendent destiny of man is reawakened. The Word of God nourishes him daily, enlightens his mind, and expels the darkness of ignorance and error.
But all this can only take effect in depth if we receive forgiveness of the guilt that burdens man’s life and obscures the relationship with God.
God offers man the forgiveness of his guilt through the death and resurrection of his Son. It is an act of God’s infinite mercy and love to take upon himself the guilt of man and thus to lift him up again. An immensely sacred process is here moved by God, who in baptism gives man the new life from God, eradicates original sin and all personal sins. Man is born anew, and the sanctifying grace now works in him.
In forgiveness we meet God in particular as the loving Father. God not only forgives perhaps minor misconduct, but he also forgives heavy guilt. The person burdened by the guilt is allowed to rise up again and learns to breathe freely.
It is precisely the experience of God’s loving presence in forgiveness that corrects the distorted image of God, which man often carries within himself. He loses a wrong fear of God and regains trust in God.
Precisely the loss of the trust in God is a serious disturbance of a healing and healthy life. Man cramps into himself and builds unnecessary protective walls around his soul. It is not the necessary wise defense against hostile forces of all kinds that is necessary in this world, but unconscious processes and closures that keep the soul closed even before the light of God.
With the experience of forgiveness, a greater responsibility grows in man. He becomes more aware of the destructive power of sin and the deeper he learns the mercy of God. He understands more and more that with sin he rejects the love of God and takes refuge in the Lord all in a more humbly way and is looking for the Sacrament of Penance. The forgiveness that he then receives is experienced by man as an act of liberation and strengthening, which awakens great gratitude in his heart. This gratitude calls him even more to avoid sin and to do all that God likes.
A deeper healing process is now taking place, for man assumes responsibility in a metaphysical sense: all responsibility for his life before God. He painfully understands that every sin has both an impact on his soul and a reduced capacity for love with other people. It becomes clear that the way of sanctification makes the light of God greater in him.
On this way man wakes up more and more in his destiny given to him by God and this gives him a deep peace. The relationship of God that has now been awakened becomes the great theme of life, and the inclinations of the fleetingness and dispersal of the soul are diminishing more and more.
Man is now more aware of life with its challenge. The soul looks beyond itself and sees with great clarity the many people who do not yet recognize God and so often still live in their sins.
It hurts them and at the same time the knowledge of God’s mercy and his willingness to forgive will to proclaim the gospel. The urgency becomes stronger the more the soul perceives its own inclination to sin and its weakness and understands God’s loving search for His children.
According to the word of the Lord, forgiveness that the soul has received from God now becomes a sacred obligation to forgive other people. Just as God erases our account of guilt by the sacrifice of His Son, so now men shall forgive those who have fallen guilty of them.
On one occasion, she finds her way out of the state of accusation against another person, an accusation that negatively ties her to the other person. So it is not only the burden that we ourselves have to bear through our own distance from God that is taken away from us, but also the attachment to a spirit of accusation towards other people, which robs us of freedom and scatters his poison again and again into our souls.
In addition, through our forgiveness, we open the door to freedom for others and take from his soul the burden that binds him to us in our accusations. The dimension of the healing of the relationship between human beings is now opened up, because where unforgiven guilt and accusation strains the relationship between human beings, the necessary freedom and thus no deeper healing of the soul arises.
We see how God, with the work of healing our souls, also takes other people into consideration, for man does not live alone and the love and forgiveness of the Lord is to be proclaimed to all people.
Just as God loves His children, we are called to love other people (cf. Joh 13:34). Thus, by opening the soul to faith and entering into the comprehensive process of healing, God gives the grace to learn to love as He loves.
Forgiveness by God, which enables us to forgive others, is a key to the healing of the soul and a message of salvation for all people.
God wants to forgive, He does not want to count the sins of men, He does not want his children to be exposed to the darkness of sin, and God wants to heal them.
God’s heart is wide open to us. We may come to Him in confidence and receive forgiveness.
Harpa Dei accompanies the daily scriptural interpretation or spiritual teaching of Br. Elija, their spiritual father. These meditations can be heard on the following website www.en.elijamission.net