Opening Prayer
Our rebellious hearts must frustrate You, Good God! Thank you for continuing to call us back and embrace us with forgiveness, despite our attempts to rationalize our insensitive, evil and self-destructive ways. As You are forgiving, make us a forgiving people. Teach us not to lay burdens and guilt on people already heavily laden. Like Peter, we look for when the generosity of forgiveness can end so that our righteous and imprisoning judgments can begin. It is so frustrating that you proclaim the endless forgiveness we expect from you as the norm of the way we treat each other. Help me to be forgiving today to those I find it most difficult to forgive. InSpirit me to be a living sign of your saving, freeing, forgiving and uplifting presence. Heal the hurts of my soul that I not impose them on others. Free me of judgments which confine, burden, demean or destroy others. Give me the compassion of your forgiving heart!
View Scripture on USCCB Website