Removing Old Animosties (Thur-Sat)

Thursday: Col 3 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Again from Total Forgiveness (Charisma House): How has the Lord forgiven me? Unequivocally and unconditionally. My sins, which are many, will never be held against me, and nobody will even know what I did. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Ps. 103.12). It therefore follows that I should not hold people responsible for what they have done to me. I will hold nothing against them, and I will not tell other people, not even my closest friends, what they did to me.”

Special Focus: removal of animosities between groups in our town: racial, cultural, religious, class

Friday: Clarifying forgiveness:
What it is not (Taken from RT Kendall, Total Forgiveness)
1. Approval of what they did. (John 8.11)
2. Excusing what they did
3. Justifying what they did
4. Pardoning what they did
5. Reconciliation
6. Denying what they did
7. Blindness to what happened
8. Forgetting
9. Refusing to take the wrong seriously
10. Pretending we are not hurt
Father, forgive me for I have trusted the enemy of my soul who lied to me saying that forgiveness will make matters worse. Help me not to listen to the liar anymore, but to listen to You as You say, “Trust Me. Trust Me with your hurt. Trust Me with your enemy.” Through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Saturday: Clarifying Forgiveness:
What it is (Taken from RT Kendall, Total Forgiveness)
1. Being aware of what someone has done and still forgiving them.
2. Choosing to keep no record of wrongs.
3. Refusing to punish
4. Not telling what they did (with the exception of legal reasons to protect others, or therapeutically to tell a counselor one time)
5. Being merciful
6. Graciousness
7. It is an inner condition
8. It is the absence of bitterness
Father, prepare me to receive your Word and Sacrament tomorrow in celebration of Your great removal of the enmity that separated me from You and from my brothers and sisters. Re-member me into Your body, as I remember Your death and resurrection. Through Jesus Christ. Amen.