Its Lent and I would like to ask you to take a moment out of your - TopicsExpress



          

Its Lent and I would like to ask you to take a moment out of your Facebook surfing to read a little section of Our Common Rule of Life on Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Chapter V Forgiveness and Reconciliation A call to community is a call to perpetual forgiveness and reconciliation. It is a never ending process that enables us to live harmoniously in close relationship with one another and all of creation. We can allow ourselves to be forgiven only as much as we can allow ourselves to forgive and because of that we should always be mindful of and engaged in the gift of reconciliation, forgiving our brothers and sisters as we ourselves wish to be forgiven. Forgiveness can be born out of a response to true repentance or it can be a gift freely given but it should always be genuine and not manipulative, truthful and not deceiving. It is one of the most powerful and Christ like gifts we can offer our brother or sister and ourselves. Our Order is based on love, and seeking to love one another we must seek to forgive one another. Forgiveness is a decision and not necessarily always a feeling. It is through forgiveness that we intend to enter into, spiritually if not emotionally, a place where we may be reconciled to one another. As we enter into this place, we must ourselves shed our expectations of our brother or sister even as they themselves must attempt to reconcile with us. Reconciliation is a process and not an automatic given. It is a healing process that begins with compassionate listening, it encourages mutual transparency, and ultimately offers mutual acceptance, but through it all it demands mutual courage to persevere. During this painful process the wise and sometimes more objective counsel of foster-parents, spiritual advisors, the Abbot or Abbess, or the Visitor or Chaplain should be sought. “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.” -St. Martin Luther King, Jr. “We do not really know how to forgive until we know what it is to be forgiven. Therefore we should be glad that we can be forgiven by others. It is our forgiveness of one another that makes the love of Jesus manifest in our lives, for in forgiving one another we act towards one another as He has acted towards us.” -St. Thomas Merton
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 02:30:25 +0000

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