Every morning we begin our day at the Inn with a Catholic Mass. Attendance is not required; however, it is a wonderful way to get strength for our day and center ourselves on what is important. Several days each week, various people who attend AA and NA meetings across the street join us.
Yesterday the readings were on forgiveness--how God forgives us and how we must forgive others. Fr. Pat talked about how hard this is because as humans we like to "keep score." If one truly forgives, one must not keep count of the hurts. After he finished speaking, he invited all present to share their thoughts on the reading. Obviously, the message had touched a chord with several present. One woman talked about how she could quickly come up with 9 relationships that she had, and how she was constantly dredging up past hurts to explain her behavior toward these people. Another man said he had been struggling with forgiving a person for 3 years, and that his resentment of this individual had attributed to his problems with sobriety. To me, the most emotional sharing came from a man who said he had come from Jersey to commit a crime. He had planned to kill a man, but seeing the man come from his home and the children inside the house had stopped him. He saw himself as basically a good person, but his target had done something terrible and he was seeking revenge. He asked for prayers for himself to keep him from following through on his plan. I had never seen this man before, and wondered what had drawn him that morning to our little chapel on the day that mercy and forgiveness were the topics.
All of us present had people who had hurt us and people we needed to forgive. In some cases, the lack of forgiveness had led to extreme changes in behavior and life choices. Every day I see people whose lives have been altered because they forgave or did not forgive. I hope I can continue to make the choice to forgive.
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