Jesus so forgave us we must forgive, it is as simple as that

St Francis of Assisi says,"It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, In giving of ourselves that we receive...." Remembering that we have had so many second chances in our lives with Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit, when we REALLY never deserved it in the first place. This should be enough of a reason to want to give chances to everybody and for anything, but when the time comes, it depends on what side of the coin we are on, the giver or the receiver, this determines how easy it is to do. It sounds horrible, but it is very human.

Second chances, reconciliation, forgiveness, expiation, redemption, and pardoning all difficult to do, yet so needed in our society today and mostly within ourselves. Even in the name "second chances" there really isn't just two, its bascially a lifetimes worth, which thank God we get. As humans, we were given the ultimate second chance in Jesus, He gives us the second chance into union with God. There is no other way. Jesus is our perfect second chance to God because of the unfathomable wickedness of sin that we deal with in our world today. God is the unconditional second chance giver, he proved that by sending His son to die for our sins.

It is sometimes hard to "give" the chance because: of our own egoness, stuborness, pride because we have to say sorry, not wanting to say sorry because my way is the right way. What makes it even harder, is when you really were right, but still have to "keep the peace, keep quiet" It reminds me when Christ Jesus told St. Faustina about the graces he won for us as he had to be silent when standing in front of Pilate. I must keep remembering this stuff, because that's what he died for and why I need to forgive since I have been forgiven by the fount of forgiveness himself, Jesus Christ.

One reason for why it is hard to "give" for me is because of what has happened.
The problem with that is, as time passes, the incident becomes more of a moot point. It becomes trivial because so much time has passed by. Disagreements can go on for years, two people/families that have been mad at each other, and they forget why they are mad, they just remember being mad all the time, it becomes second nature, it becomes a habitual. Sad really, yet we all have done it. What is liberating, what is freeing for any person is just to come clean. Just take the step and say sorry, take the step and call a truce, and you live by the truce and move on. It feels like a weight is lifted from your shoulders and replaced with peace. Now you don't have to worry about, we dont have to think about, we don't have to waste anymore energy on holding the grudge, which truly can be so heavy. but so light when we make it right, or at least try to. How does it become lighter/peacful? Well we are letting Christs' righteousness seap through. When we do this, we are graced with the guts to make amends, take the higher road, be the better person. Why? I feel because my heart becomes resolved. Resolved in what? Resolved in Christ. What gets resolved in Christ? The adamacy, the tension, the hurt, the defense mechanisms, and the feeling of it not being fair. I know life is not fair, but in making amends I need to be o.k with a few things to start in me, so time can heal everything else.

A second reason why its hard for me to give chances is due to the extent to which it has happened, again, another moot point. Yes at first it may feel very violating, very wrong, very not right, but really, we can not change what has happened because it is already done. This for me is a very time consuming/distracting, draining, and imprisoning phase for me, because I stay stuck in chains. For me, those are the reasons why I get stuck, stay stuck everytime I need to forgive and don't. So all of this time, in the "now", all of this energy is just for aggrevation, frustration and anxiety. Stress for ourselves and for anyone else who cares, who listens, because misery/negativity loves company it keeps itself fueled that way. This brings up another thought, isn't it funny how our tolerance levels vary so much from person to person. For some reason it is easier to swallow my pride for some people and then it feels like swallowing nails for the other. I need to remember it was nails that held my Christ up on that cross, so I really needn't complain. I know, it is just really hard to live like that. Why is that? How are pride has such a hold on me. The enemy keeps his hold/grasp on us, in these realms, it keeps me in bondage. "Why should I forgive, I wasn't wrong in the first place?" These stubborn question we ask ourselves, and here's the answer I keep getting,,,, well let's see, the extent Jesus took it to, the nailing of himself onto a cross for forgiveness. That's what I need to know and remember and love and to imitate. Jesus is why we should and Jesus is why we do.

Another obstacle of mine is how many times it has happened. The sad fact, is that is it still going to happen again. People don't change quickly, some people never change at all. So even though we change, we see our ways, and try to change them and make them better does not mean others will. But when it happens again, it becomes a little easier to deal with and get over. This is where it becomes tricky, this is how I humbly see it, we get into a skirimish, we are mad , time goes by, we have a chance to get free by the grace of God through forgiveness, then we can be free, we move on. The other person/party it may not be that easy. it is not their fault. Jesus died for everybody and everything. He is the only judge, nobody or nothing else is. By not forgiving or letting it go, we keep the wound fresh and open with our left hand and then I have the nerve to ask the right hand when is this wound going to scab and go away? How insane is that? I do this....truly.People are people, they can not change over night, unless it be the will of God of course, but we are people that act the way we act for a long time, and some habits are hard to break. I can appreciate that. But when "it hits the fan again", and it will, it becomes a little easier to do" the getting over it part" That's when I try to realize and re-realize again, that Jesus had to be the one doing all of the letting go for us during that terrible sacraficial Friday, then our situations becomes very tiny next to that. I have found it is also an opportunity we have to offer something back to God, for loving us so much to discipline us and mold us in our imperfections to help perfect our Love to His Son, which really we are not worthy of, yet that is all God want us to do, because that is all God does, He just loves.

To be the receiver of the chance/forgiveness is a very humbling experience. At that time, because I know I did wrong and what is really cool is that I want to make it right, make amends, to get the chance to make it right, a very humbling process to do. In my very recent personal experience this has happened to me by a collegue at work. I was really wrong and called out on it. I humbly saw the error of my ways and felt terrible about it. I asked for forgiveness and the second chance to redeem myself. He gave it. We moved on and now we are doing o.k. Thank God. The tighter the amends, the better the chance.I feel really depends on the intention or motivations we hold in our hearts because of being so humbled or feeling humilated. I think the feelings of humiliation does fade, it loses its weight in time. Yet I feel it promotes change. It stirs something in us to do better, to get back on the horse and try again. God willing, the experience will inflame the desire to make it right, with all of this practice we do here on earth, I pray and hope it will help me in my interior life with God. In all of this experience I feel helps me to always to humbly go to Him and say sorry, mean it, and try to do better, not for ourselves, but for Him and Him alone.


This all leads me to believe in second chances, and stirs in me a thing to give them more, especially when I really do not want to. But seriously, I am humbly seeing and learning how to be more open in giving them, especially condsidering recent events where I had asked for them and received them from another. Whom, I am sure had a tough time doing so, but they still did. Honestly, I was so grateful. This forgiveness stuff truly, is an insane dichotomy we all, I mean all, have to deal with. It is not nice, not fun, not easy to do, and just real hard to live by and live with. But Thank God Jesus did all ot this stuff so perfectly because of all or our imperfectness we all posess.

Maybe we aren't supposed to make amends with everybody, yet that doesn't sound right through, it sounds and feels unresolved. Especially, because its going against the second commandment, love thy neighbor as thyself, and look how much we were loved, through the sacrificial Lamb of God, for our wretched lives of sin. He so forgave us that we must forgive, it is as simple as that. St. Francis of Assisi said it beautifully, ".....and in dying that were born into Eternal Life."

Amen.

The morphing process of pruning...God helps us all

Tonight, at our disciplship meeting, Patrick had brought up the point of hiding, retreating, in the bush out of shame, unworthiness or the undeservingness. Fr. Paul then elaborated on the fact of it being a wound that Jesus goes into, but we have to believe and to trust in Christ. To believe in that wound, that brokeness, that grudge, that resentment, that block/obstacle of ourselves means to believe and to trust that Christ Jesus is there, and its o.k. What we trust in IS HIM, and for me personally, I place alot of my trust in the fact that Jesus is happy to be there to help us out. He does all the time anyways, this I know. I trust that he does all of this, just because He loves me, which really helps me, love Him even more. With all of this falling in and out of love that I do in my little wretched life, all of this change; in all of my doubts and fears, bottom line is that Jesus is my/our Almighty Savior and Redeemer and that is whom I place all of my trust in, and HIM ONLY.

He is "MY LORD, AND MY GOD" TOO!!! I quote St. Thomas the apostle. Him being the "Doutbting Thomas" to a very true and fearless apostle of Our Lord and Our God, by restoring our faith because we believe. Maybe that is how Jesus loves us through all of our "doubting Thomas's" in our broken wounds and inflated egos. Every time we feel our wounds, we think our wound, we pray about our wounds, we let go of our wounds, we empty ourselves of the wounds (or so we think) we re-open our wounds, if we REMAIN on the vine, IN CHRIST, IN THIS BODY AND BLOOD he mends and reseams our brokeness, our grudges, our resentements, our blocks/obstacles of ourselves INTO THE LOVE OF LIFE ITSELF.

And in experiencing that mending, on any level in any form, is truly a most gentle nurturing type of a love that gets mixed with our souls to give us a peace of mind and heart that only comes from our Lord. I have tried other ways to get this, it ALMOST WORKS....but never does in the end. All of these gentle ways to experience and learn HOW to believe and HOW to trust, all of these moments of gentle consolation of faith, we allow Jesus to work right in the wound, as a result, we will grow in faith, in belief and IN TRUTH......Whom is? Christ Jesus. What truth do we grow in? We grow in the truths of ourselves, which is ususally a very layered voyage down those deep depths, yet I find consolation that when we grow in these ways, we grow deeper IN the Lord, and IN the mending and re-seaming phases. I may be growing deeper but it may feel a tad overwhelming at that time, but the mending and re-seaming phase takes time, that's why it is a phase, we all go through in our own little ways.

I am very thankful that Love is unconditional, Love is God. Love never fails, we do. But we get back up, lick the wounds and live on. God unconditionally loves our conditions and loves them into his own, Christ Jesus.I humbly reflect on the parable of the vine and the branches, specifically on the part of John 15:2-3 "He takes away every branch that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes, so that it bears more fruit." I recently witnessed rose bushes grow through their pruning process and bloom and produce the most fragrant and richest of mix of colors, it was truly amazing, truly a marvelous and most wonderful works of the Lord Almighty. I remember seeing the rose bushes full, green, leaves healthy, branches stable and growing nicely the next day I see the rose bushes, and they were stripped down to a bare nothing, this was honestly during lent actually, and I felt sad, shocked, a little angry, I wanted to know what happened and mostly WHY such a cut down. I was told this will help the rose bush and it will be just fine.

Time passed on, and I critically watched, I wanted to see HOW fine this bush was going to be, when it was stripped to nothing when it "seemed" to be doing ok. Well, the brown thinned branches started to show green, and in its greeness/newness it re-fortified the whole, it grew. It got thicker, It got taller, It got wider, It got leafier, It got so many blooms, It is gorgeous to this very day. All that morphing right in our own backyard, all that morphing done by the grace and love of God, for us, so that we may have these joys and wonders and miracles and marvelous works for us to be happy. In the spring the bush did have stronger and beautfiul roses, just like all the other rose bushes. The new blossoms, the new leaves, the stronger branches, the stronger roots, the whole bush getting stronger and stronger with each season it its own time, to produce the best fruit possible for the Glory of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Maybe that's why the morphing process, the desert, the testing of gold in fire, the pruning are all processes, done in the timing of or according to the will of God. Each growth process is done in its time, and in its appropiate season, as the seasons pass on, as they do so quickly, the morphing process hurts, shocks, grounds us, humbles us, strips us, belittles us, pierces us, but not as bad or not as deep. As each pruning season comes and goes, we get stronger and stronger.Yes the wound is there, but the sting, bite, the prunimg, the value of what hurt us so,,,,, well that gets softened in the callus of experience and in the big soft heart of God. Amen.