Luke 23:33-35: 33When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.
34 Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’
And they cast lots to divide his clothing. 35And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!’
Since God requires you to forgive, it is something you can do. Sometimes it is hard to forgive someone because you naturally want revenge for the things you have suffered. Forgiveness seems to go against your sense of what is right and fair. So you hold onto your anger, punishing people over and over again in your mind for the pain they’ve caused.
Here are the reasons that forgiveness is a necessity:
* Forgetting is not forgiveness.
People who want to forget what was done to them will find they cannot do it. The thoughts and hurts keep coming back. The healing cannot begin until you forgive.
* Forgiveness is a choice, a decision of your will.
God tells you never to take your own revenge (Rom. 12:19).
Trust that God will deal with that person justly and fairly.
* Forgive others for your sake so you can be free.
Forgiveness is mainly a matter of obedience to God. He wants you to be free.
* Forgiveness is agreeing to live with the consequences of another person’s sin.
You are going to have to live with those consequences, whether you like it or not. Your choice is whether you will do so in the bondage of bitterness or in the freedom of forgiveness. You may wonder where the justice is in it. Justice is found at the cross, which makes forgiveness legally and morally right.
* Do not wait for the other person to ask for your forgiveness.
Jesus did not wait for those who were crucifying Him to apologize before He forgave them.
Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34).
* Forgive from your heart.
Too often we’re afraid of the pain so we bury our emotions deep down inside us.
Let God bring them to the surface so He can begin to heal those damaged emotions.
* Forgiveness is choosing not to hold someone’s sin against him or her.
Let go of the past, refusing to bring up old issues with the person who wronged you or with others who will listen. Reject any thought of revenge. This doesn’t mean you continue to put up with the future sins of others. God doesn’t tolerate sin and neither should you. Take a stand against sin while continuing to exercise grace and forgiveness toward those who hurt you. Hate the sin but love the sinner!
* Don’t wait until you feel like forgiving.
You will never get there. Make the hard choice to forgive even if you don’t feel like it. Once you choose to forgive Satan will have lost his power over you in that area, and God’s healing touch will be free to move.
Forgiveness Prayer
Lord, you call us to take up our crosses and follow you….
Today I realise I have also carried some unnecessary burdens
that have weighed me down, slowing my progress….
Excess baggage that I need to put down, rather than having to pay for!
Today, I choose forgiveness!
Today, I choose to let go of my hurts and unforgiveness!
Today, I choose to walk free, with love in my heart!
Yet I know it’s hard ‘cos I have kept all this deep down in me…
Some angry, hurt feelings and unpleasant memories are so old,
but have simmered and stewed for so long,
that I have even forgotten the actual details of the fights and quarrels
but the broken relationships have remained broken…
cold…
and distant…
In choosing forgiveness, I seek your help and grace
to ‘Let Go and Let God’…..
Help me remember that you have forgiven me my many sins.
Let me not cling to the past, but welcome the hope of tomorrow!
Fill my heart with your love – that it might overflow to all…
– including the victims of my unforgiveness.
May I walk free again…
And bask in the sunshine of your forgiveness!
Forgiven, may I too forgive,
for that is your will and command
to all who love you.
And yes, I love you, Lord!
– GT2020
Luke 23:39-43: One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, ‘Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’ But the other rebuked him, saying, ‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?And we indeed have been condemned justly,for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.’Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ He replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’
Genesis 2:7 then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The word paradise, from the Greek word paradeisos, which meant “garden,” was used in the Greek Old Testament as a word for the Garden of Eden.
In my Father’s house there are many places to live in; otherwise I would have told you. I am going now to prepare a place for you, and after I have gone and prepared you a place,
I shall return to take you to myself, so that you may be with me where I am. Jn 14:2-3
Psalm 116.1(114) 1 I love the Lord for he has heard 5 How gracious is the Lord, and just; | In him who rose from the dead, our hope of resurrection dawned. The sadness of death gives way to the bright promise of immortality. Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended. When the body of our earthly dwelling lies in death, we gain an everlasting place in heaven. Eucharistic Prayer Preface of Christian Death |
John 19:25-27…Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’ Lk 2:34-35
But he said to them,
“My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” Lk 8:21
Thus the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, joining herself with his sacrifice in her mother’s heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim, born of her: to be given, by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross, as a mother to his disciple, with these words: “Woman, behold your son.” Lumen Gentium no 52
Mt 27:46-47 And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, ‘This man is calling for Elijah.’
Psalm 22
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13 Many bulls have surrounded me, .15 Like water I am poured out, |
Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which was brought upon me, which the Lord inflicted on the day of his fierce anger. Lamentations 1:12
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, and broken my bones; he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago…. He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace, I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “Gone is my glory, and my expectation from the Lord.” Remember my affliction and my bitterness, the wormwood and the gall! Lamentations 3:1-6, 16-21 [Matthew 27:45-4
Who will separate us from the love of Christ?
Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 8:35-39
At the same time, the invocation of the dying Redeemer resounds in the liturgy: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34). Often we hear that this cry of suffering is “ours” in the various painful situations of existence, which can cause deep discomfort and generate preoccupations and uncertainties. In moments of solitude and being lost, not infrequent in our lives, the exclamation can sprout up in the soul of the believer, “The Lord has abandoned me!”
The passion of Christ and his glorification on the Tree of the Cross, however, offer a different light to see such events. On Golgotha, the Father, in the fullness of the sacrifice of his only-begotten Son, does not abandon him. Instead, he is bringing the plan of salvation to completion for all of humanity.
In his passion, death, and resurrection, he reveals to us that the last word in human existence is not death, but rather the victory of God over death. Divine love, made fully clear in the Paschal Mystery, conquers death and sin, which is its cause (cf. Rom 5:12)
Holy Week General Audience – Pope John Paul II, April 19, 2000
For further reflection: Was God now hiding from Jesus… or was it just that Jesus lost sight of God? When it feels like that, what’s the difference?
I longed for ecstasy to be ravished to be taken over full-on …
…but all I got were mere drips and drabs …a flicker in the dark… …a hint of a scent …a gentle breeze amidst the balmy heat I waited…. and I mourned… my desire unsated… defeated, desolate… … would I look elsewhere? … should I?
But no! I had put my lot with You and I would stay… …waiting …beseeching |
for surely there is the coming flood… …the avalanche of grace that will bathe and drench… …soothe and satisfy the inner longings of a parched pilgrim whose outstretched hands and heart are heavy
…at least for a bit before the longings surge yet again…
…and so I wait -not always patiently- and in the waiting, I breathe the heavy air of desire and longing…
I await….
Come, my desire Come , my longing Come, my God |
Jn 19:28-29 After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.
Like the deer that yearns
for running streams,
so my soul is yearning
for you, my God.
My soul is thirsting for God,
the God of my life;
when can I enter and see
the face of God?
Psalm 42:2-3
For food they gave me poison;
in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. Psalm 69: 22
O my people, what have I done unto thee?
Or wherein have I wearied thee?
Testify against me….
What more could I have done for thee that I have not done?
I indeed did plant thee, O my vineyard, with exceeding fair fruit:
and thou art become very bitter unto me:
for vinegar mingled with gall, thou gavest me when thirsty:
and hast pierced with a spear the side of thy Saviour.
Holy God,
Holy Mighty,
Holy Immortal, have mercy upon us.
–The Solemn Reproaches of Good Frid
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Jn 6:35
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, Jn 7:37
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Mt 5:6
O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Ps 63:1
When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the LORD will answer them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. Isaiah 41:17
They shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. Isaiah 49:10
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Isaiah 55:1
Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Rev 21:6
….And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift. Rev 22:17
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out,
‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.
As the scripture has said, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” ’ Jn 7:37-38
I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.
Answer me quickly, O Lord;
my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me,
or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit. Ps 143:6-7
For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me, Mt 25:35
for further reflection: Jn 4:5-3
“…I thirst for you. Yes, that is the only way to even begin to describe my love for you: I thirst for you. I thirst to love and to be loved by you – that is how precious you are to me. I thirst for you. Come to me, and fill your heart and heal your wounds. I Thirst for You by Mother Teresa “…Mother Teresa of Calcutta ordered that Jesus’ words “I thirst!” should appear next to the cross in all her communities around the world. “The Lord is thirsty for our love, for our heart. He wants to give himself to us. And through us, he wishes to give his love to others…” Tragedy of our time is loss of sense of sin – Archbishop of Vienna Addresses International Eucharistic Congress | Thou, the great God Whom earth and heaven adore, I, too, Thy prisoner am I; For love of Thee I thirst! Fulfil my hope; I Thirst for Love, Saint Therese of Lisieux But water is not the only thing that brings us life. Each of us is thirsty for something more, something else, refreshment to transcend our physical needs, to sustain us way down deep inside…….. |
Jn 19:30 When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” …And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished…. [Gen 1:26-28, 31—2:1a].
Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.
Jn 4:34
…The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.
Jn 5:36
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
2 Tim 4:7
I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.
Jn 17:4
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Phil 3:14
Lk 23:44-46 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last.
Psalm 31/32 hidden for you are my refuge, Lord. /.7 O God of truth, you detest | “I called to the Lord, out of my distress,
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THY WILL BE DONE!
Compiled by Fr Gerard Theraviam