March 26, 2019: Week 5 - Divine Mercy - Forgiveness
March 26, 2019: Week 5 - Divine Mercy - Forgiveness
Do you ever struggle with the question, “Does God really forgive me?” Often we experience a nagging feeling of guilt even after receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation. That guilty feeling recurs especially with our habitual sins that we have struggled with for many years. Also when a stray memory reminds us of a wrongdoing or fault from our past, the feeling of guilt resurfaces.
What should we do when the past torments us? An old priest used to say to penitents, “You need to learn to forgive yourself. God has forgiven you, so you need to forgive yourself.” It sounds easier said than done. So how do we “learn” to forgive ourselves? Someone beautifully wrote, “With eyes of faith, we submit the past to God’s forgiveness, the future to God’s mercy, and the present to God’s peace.”
Today’s First Reading reminds us that God is pleased when we come to Him with our humble and contrite heart. Our baptismal promises call us to strive to break out of our habit of sin, a sincere effort toward changing our lives. God is also pleased when we show our gratefulness to him. One way to show our gratefulness is to slow down our frantic pace of life so as to notice God’s gifts of love being showered upon us. When we dwell in the past--what we have done to others and what others have done to us—we fail to notice even the simple gifts of a smile from our spouse, a glorious sunshine, and a freshly blooming rose.
The priests of our deanery will be here after we sing the Chaplet of Divine Mercy so that we can surrender our past to God’s forgiveness. Let us ponder the simple words of Mother Teresa on the gift of the Sacrament of Reconciliation: “Don’t waste time on what happened before. If something is hurting you inside, preoccupying you, get it out, make a good confession…[Reconciliation] is a place where I allow Jesus to take away from me everything that divides, destroys...we go as sinners with sin and come out as sinners without sin…[In Reconciliation] is Jesus and I, and nobody else. Remember this for life.”
