Forgiveness does not mean forgetting what has happened, but bearing the burden of another person’s weakness, or sometimes another person’s evil.
The Apostle Paul says: “You bear the burdens of one another.” And these burdens are very often the failure of each of us to measure up to our calling; our inability to love, to accept, to serve, to help each other on the path that leads to God.
So, let us judge our souls, our lives; let us judge justly and honestly, and ask forgiveness not only from God – in a sense this often seems easier to us than to ask forgiveness from our neighbor. But let us ask forgiveness from those we have offended in one way or another, but also from those whom we did not help in their journey to God. We are all weak, we all need support.
Do we support each other? Or do we choose those we want to support, because we like them, because supporting them is a joy for us, because this means that they also respond out of gratitude, out of friendship?
Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
