Forgiveness Again

God is asking me to forgive, and I have said I forgive, but it seems as though my heart is not there yet.  Recently, I was hurt by a friend.  It really should not have been such a big deal, but for reasons I cannot quite understand, it hurt me deeply, and I am having a hard time with the whole situation.  Forgiveness keeps coming up over and over in one form or another, but really, I just want to run away and never trust anyone.  I really think the sadness I have probably has less to do with this particular situation and more to do with hurts from my childhood.  Like I said, it shouldn't be such a big deal, but it is, and God is laboring in my heart over this in ways that are very painful.  The good news is that God does not ever abandon me, even if it feels like He has.  I trust that He is laboring in Love over me, His beloved daughter, even if I feel desolate.  And I am trying not to let my past govern my present, but being human, I often fail at this.  Perhaps God is asking me to trust Him more.

A few years ago, I read Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI and posted our Holy Father's thoughts on forgiveness back then, but wanted to post it again today because it resonates once again with my heart today, especially in regards to our petition for forgiveness in the Our Father:

"while we must acknowledge day by day how little our capacities suffice for that task, and how often we ourselves keep falling into guilt, this petition gives us the great consolation that our prayer is held safe within the power of his love- with which, through which, and in which it can still become a power of healing."

Here is the post from September 2010:

Having recently read Pope Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth, these words of the Holy Father still resonate deeply in my heart, and I want to share them with you. This is the part of the chapter where our Holy Father discusses the petition of "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us" and how we encounter the mystery of the Cross of Christ in this petition (from Ch5 - The Lord's Prayer, pp 158-160, emphasis mine):

"If we want to understand the petition fully and make it our own, we must go one step further and ask: What is forgiveness, really? What happens when forgiveness takes place? Guilt is a reality, an objective force; it has caused destruction that must be repaired. For this reason, forgiveness must be more than a matter of ignoring, of merely trying to forget. Guilt must be worked through, healed, and thus overcome. Forgiveness exacts a price- first of all from the person who forgives. He must overcome within himself the evil done to him; he must, as it were, burn it interiorly and in so doing renew himself. As a result, he also involves the other, the trespasser, in this process of transformation, of inner purification, and both parties, suffering all the way through and overcoming evil, are made new. At this point, we encounter the mystery of Christ's Cross. But the very first thing we encounter is the limit of our power to heal and to overcome evil. We encounter the superior power of evil, which we cannot master with our unaided powers. Reinhold Schneider says apropos of this that "evil lives in a thousand forms; it occupies the pinnacles of power...it bubbles up from the abyss. Love has just one form- your Son" (Das Vaterunser, p. 68).

"The idea that God allowed the forgiveness of guilt, the healing of man from within, to cost him the death of his Son has come to seem quite alien to us today. That the Lord has "borne our diseases and taken upon himself sorrows," that"he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities," and that "with his wounds we are healed" (Is 53:4-6) no longer seems plausible
to us today. Militating against this, on one side, is the trivialization of evil in which we take refuge, despite the fact that at the very same time we treat the horrors of human history, especially of the most recent human history as an irrefutable pretext for denying the existence of a good God and slandering his creature man. But the understanding of the great mystery of expiation is also blocked by our individualistic image of man. We can no longer grasp substitution because we think that every man is ensconced in himself alone. The fact that all individual beings are deeply interwoven and that all are encompassed in turn by the being of the One, the Incarnate Son, is something we are no longer capable of seeing. When we come to speak of Christ's Crucifixion, we will have to take up these issues again.

"In the meantime, the idea of Cardinal John Henry Newman may suffice. Newman once said that while God could create the whole world out of nothing with just one word, he could overcome men's guilt and suffering only by bringing himself into play, by becoming in his Son a sufferer who carried this burden and overcame it through his self-surrender. The overcoming of guilt has a price: We must put our heart- or, better, our whole existence- on the line. And even this act is insufficient; it can become effective only through communion with the One who bore the burdens of us all.

"The petition for forgiveness is more than a moral exhortation- though it is that as well, and as such it challenges us anew every day. But, at its deepest core, it is- like the other petitions- a Christological prayer. It reminds us of he who allowed forgiveness to cost him descent into the hardship of human existence and death on the Cross. It calls us first and foremost to thankfulness for that, and then, with him, to work through and suffer through evil by means of love. And while we must acknowledge day by day how little our capacities suffice for that task, and how often we ourselves keep falling into guilt, this petition gives us the great consolation that our prayer is held safe within the power of his love- with which, through which, and in which it can still become a power of healing."

God, thank You for these words of the Holy Father. Please watch over him and protect him in his travels. Thank You for giving us a wise and holy shepherd. Jesus, thank You for Your Love and Mercy. Open our hearts to receive You and all You give us. Open our hearts to forgive as You forgive and to Love as You Love. In Your Holy Name, Amen.