Forgiveness

"For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not fogive your sins." (Mathew 6: 14).

It is important that we learn how to forgive our brothers and sisters in Christ, as the Lord forgives us. In the gospel, one of Jeses' desciples asks him how many times he should forgive his brother. He suggests "seven times?", but Jesus answers, "not seven times, but seven times seventy".

It may be easy to forgive a friend for "standing you up" once. It may be easy to forgive your significant other when he or she occassionally does something you don't appreciate or like. But, how many of us can forgive something bigger like an affair? Someone who raped you? Someone who told a lie that changed your entire life?

Sometimes it's very difficult to forgive big sins, but if we want to be forgiven for all of our sins, we need to learn how to forgive others as God has commanded us.