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meditation of the day

Forgiven and Forgiving

Every day, my Jesus, I learn by some situation or experience of my great need for you. When I try to be patient on my own, my patience is forced and short-lived. It is obvious to everyone that I am desperately trying to be patient. When I raise my mind and heart to you, dear Jesus, and see you so serenely patient, my soul drinks in that spirit of patience like a cool breeze on a humid night. Your patience penetrates my being, and only then am I truly patient. It takes so long to learn that I can bear fruit only in you.

How very much you love me! Love is proven by sacrifice, and you have proven your love for me. This realization makes me feel small, for I am forced to admit that my love for you is very little. I run from sacrifice and am afraid of pain. Death at times seems like a dark tunnel to be traveled, and the future seems bleak. When I compare my attitude with yours, I realize that in myself I have nothing to offer you. The only claim I have is your love for me. When I think of that love, I feel a sudden surge of courage to face the future. Even death becomes merely the beautiful moment when the One who loves and the one who is loved meet face-to-face.

Lord Father, I enter into your compassionate Spirit and try to drink deeply of your merciful love. My memory smarts with the remembrance of past offenses, and my soul is pained by the anger of yesterdays—days in the past that bring tears and sadness. Every time I think they are gone, they return with renewed vigor, and I realize I have not grown in compassion and forgiveness. I put my memory into your compassionate mercy, and I ask you to cover its wounds with the healing balm of your mercy. Let my soul sink deep into that fathomless ocean of mercy and return to me renewed, healed, and refreshed with love for everyone and malice toward none.

Lord Father, heal my memory…. Sometimes an event that happened years ago suddenly looms up and the hurt returns, and with it anger and resentment. Jesus told us to be as compassionate and merciful as you are. I find this very hard, and yet why should I? Have I not been the recipient of your mercy and forgiveness? Is it not a greater thing for me to offend God than for a fellow creature to offend me? You forgive and forget so completely and so graciously. Let me bury all my unpleasant memories in your ocean of mercy and drown them forever in those peaceful waters. May the phantoms of yesterday never take up residence in today and destroy my tomorrow. Give me hope, Lord Father, to trust in your forgiveness, and let me always give my neighbor the benefit of the doubt so I may forgive him from my heart.

Mother Angelica of the Annunciation, p.c.p.a.

Mother Angelica († 2016) was a Poor Clare nun and founder of the Eternal Word Television Network. / From Praying with Mother Angelica: Meditations on the Rosary, the Way of the Cross, and Other Prayers. © 2016, EWTN Publishing, Inc. Distributed by Sophia Institute Press, Manchester, NH. Used with permission.