Encountering Christ

I started a new book study a few weeks ago with a few women from my parish. It is a book study more than a bible study because we aren’t just studying scripture, we are taking scripture and through prayer, allowing God to speak to us. This study helps us to have an encounter with Christ through prayer. We pray using Lectio Divina individually and as a group. It helps us to see God working in our lives and helps us make changes that will help us be more Christ-like. It is similar to what I was doing with the daily readings but this study focuses on a different virtue in each chapter and all the scripture focuses on that one virtue. The second chapter that we just finished tonight was on forgiveness.

There is scripture throughout the Old and New Testament that shows us what forgiveness truly means. Jeremiah tells us in verse 31:34 that we come to know the Lord through His forgiveness of our sins. I hadn’t thought about that before but it makes perfect sense. We experience the perfect love of God though his forgiveness. As we come to know the Lord more and more we want to please him and we want to imitate him. We realize that it is only through his grace that we can forgive the unforgivable.

God tells us that we will have trouble in this world, “I have told you this so that you might have peace in me. In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” (John 16:33) We know this but yet we are shocked and blindsided when others betray us. Sometimes it knocks us to our knees and then our unforgiveness keeps us there. We want to nurse our wounds. We may try to numb the pain with many things but none of them work. Christ paid the price for all the sins of the world, those that have been inflicted on us and those we inflict on others. When we rise above the hurt and choose (and it is a choice) to forgive as Christ did, we provide an opportunity for others to receive God’s grace as well. The peace I feel after receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the same peace that is offered to others when I forgive them. And it sets me free because unforgiveness always keeps us in bondage.

“In refusing to forgive our brothers and sisters, our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father’s merciful love; but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace.”

~ Catechism of the Catholic Church 2839-2840