Loving your neighbour doesn’t always look like you would expect. Sometimes loving your neighbour means coming to terms with harms done and walking the path of reconciliation, even if that means recognizing you’re the one who caused the harm. The hardest part of reconciliation is forgiveness.
Forgiveness is not about saying what happened was okay, and it’s not about releasing the other person of responsibility. Forgiveness, especially self-forgiveness, means releasing a burden. It means letting go of the guilt or the grudge. Forgiveness means letting go of what you’re carrying because it’s hard to carry the extra weight of things that happened in the past. But it’s human nature to resist letting go as we try to protect our way of life and control the stories people believe about us.
Forgiveness and reconciliation are hard work. In each step towards reconciliation, Jesus calls us to remain focused on building connections with others instead of shutting them out. Just as Jesus sat at the table with sinners, he calls us to break bread with our enemies. In the name of Jesus, we are called to be agents of reconciliation to each other and to the world that God loves.
Almighty God, show us the way to forgive ourselves and others so that we can bring reconciliation to the table of our enemies. —