Blessed are You, Oh Lord Our God, Who Heals Us with Forgiveness

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With a healed and happy heart,
we proclaim our thanksgiving to You,
God of Compassion and Great Kindness.
We rejoice in Your absolution of our failings
and in the fact that You call us
to forgive each other daily
with the sacrament of understanding,
for in that mutual forgiveness,
we experience Your divine grace.

We are grateful for those persons in our lives
who have allowed us to be reconciled
after we have become separated from them
through selfishness and thoughtlessness.
For the numerous experiences of absolution in our past lives,
for lifting of the burden of guilt,
we are thankful.

We are most grateful as well, Loving God,
for the gift of Your Son, Jesus,
who calls us to lives of compassion,
to forgiveness and understanding.
He, by His life, gave us an example
of how we are to love those who harm us
and forgive those who injure us
when He asked You, His Father,
to forgive those who had led Him to suffer
and die on a cross.

Teach us, Lord,
how to forgive ourselves
and to be patient with the slowness
of our growth in holiness.
Able to forgive ourselves,
we shall be more eager and able to forgive others
according to Your divine pattern.

Blessed are You, Lord our God,
who heals us with forgiveness.
Amen

 

Edward Hays
priest, author, storyteller, artist
1931-2016