Being Forgiven

Forgiveness is not simply a one-time action or an isolated feeling or thought.  Rather, the Christian practice of forgiveness involves us in a new way of life, a way that is shaped by an ever-deepening friendship with God and with other people.  The practice of forgiveness is not only, or even primarily, a way of dealing with guilt.  Instead, its central goal is to reconcile, to restore communion —with God, with one another, and with the whole creation.

The practice of forgiveness calls us willingly to do things with and for one another so that communion can be restored.  Forgiveness works through our ongoing willingness to give up certain claims against one another, to give the truth when we assess our relationships with one another, and to give gifts of ourselves by making innovative gestures that offer a future not bound by the past.  Being forgiven requires an ongoing willingness to honor a new claim that has been made on us, to speak with a new truthfulness, and to live in a new way with one another.

– from Practicing Our Faith (1997), by Dorothy C. Bass