A friend shared this with me this morning and I think it speaks to a lot of us right now. It’s a Lenten reflection from Bishop Robert Barron:
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus commands us to be reconciled with one another. I want to say something about the role of forgiveness in repairing our broken relationships.
When you are at worship and realize that you need to forgive someone (or be forgiven by someone), go and do it. Go get reconciled, then come back. It’s like a rule of physics. There is something hidden in the deep mystery of God, and I can’t fully explicate it. Somehow, if there is a lack of forgiveness in you, it blocks the movement of God in you. Perhaps it’s simply because God is love, and so whatever is opposed to love in us blocks the flow of God’s power and God’s life.
One reason we do not forgive is that we feel that some injustice has been done to us, and we resent it. A good cure for this feeling is to kneel before the cross of Jesus. What do you see there? The innocent Son of God nailed to the cross—the ultimate injustice. What does he do? He forgives his persecutors. Meditate on that, and your sense of being treated unjustly will fade away.
I’m reminded of the words of Dorothy Day: “I only really love God as much as I love the person I love the least.” A question I’ll be asking myself today: who do I love the least? What can I do about that? How can I grow in my love for someone I consider unlovable?