For the New Year
One of the biggest obstacles to forgiving is the feeling that the other party's behavior has deprived us of something important, even vital. This confused feeling nourishes resentment. The thing in question may be material, or affective or moral (not getting the love I had a right to, or the esteem, etc.), or even spiritual . . .
To live at peace, even when it is the people around us who are causing us suffering, we must take a fresh, radical look at our frustration. It does not correspond to reality. Other people's faults do not deprive us of anything. We have no valid reason for resenting them or their actions.
On the material plane, of course, other people can deprive us of many things. But not of what is essential, the only true and lasting good: God's love for us and the love we can have for him, with the inner growth it produces. Nobody can prevent us from believing in God, hoping in him, and loving him, everywhere and in all circumstances. Faith, hope, and love make human beings fully human. All else is secondary and relative; even if we are deprived of it, that is not an absolute evil. There is within us something indestructible that is guaranteed by God's faithfulness and love. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want . . . Even thought I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me."
Rather than wasting time and energy blaming others for what isn't working out, or reproaching them for what we think they are depriving us of, we should strive to acquire spiritual autonomy by deepening our relationship with God, the one unfailing source of all good, and growing in faith, hope, and disinterested love. That others are sinners cannot prevent us from becoming saints. Nobody really deprives us of anything."
~Interior Freedom, by Jacques Philippe
To live at peace, even when it is the people around us who are causing us suffering, we must take a fresh, radical look at our frustration. It does not correspond to reality. Other people's faults do not deprive us of anything. We have no valid reason for resenting them or their actions.
On the material plane, of course, other people can deprive us of many things. But not of what is essential, the only true and lasting good: God's love for us and the love we can have for him, with the inner growth it produces. Nobody can prevent us from believing in God, hoping in him, and loving him, everywhere and in all circumstances. Faith, hope, and love make human beings fully human. All else is secondary and relative; even if we are deprived of it, that is not an absolute evil. There is within us something indestructible that is guaranteed by God's faithfulness and love. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want . . . Even thought I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me."
Rather than wasting time and energy blaming others for what isn't working out, or reproaching them for what we think they are depriving us of, we should strive to acquire spiritual autonomy by deepening our relationship with God, the one unfailing source of all good, and growing in faith, hope, and disinterested love. That others are sinners cannot prevent us from becoming saints. Nobody really deprives us of anything."
~Interior Freedom, by Jacques Philippe
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