The words Jesus uses to teach praying -- what we call the Lord's Prayer --- are much more for us than learning to recite words. Jesus links his hearers to what seems critically important to prayer's beginnings --- forgiveness of those who have need of our forgiveness.
A priest who once provided spiritual direction for me remarked that he wondered if we are truly aware of what our words mean when we pray "...and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us"? Do we really mean "just as we pardon others"? To pray these words and to mean them is probably one of the most challenging moments of the day. If I pray for God's pardon, just as we do at the outset of each eucharistic liturgy, and continue to harbor genuine unforgiveness toward another person, I am creating petitions at odds with each other. Maybe it can be likened to our placing the same poles of two magnets near each other. There comes about a force that repels one from the other.
Who of us is free of this unfortunate resistance? So often prejudices prevail in most of us from our youngest days. Unfortunately prejudices are handed down to us from our families, communities, churches and races. No doubt it is one of the results of Original Sin.
Forgiveness is no easy practice because it requires of us the recognition that we have been damaged by someone else. Who of us is comfortable admitting others have hurt us? Do I find reaching out to someone who offended me and my life easy? My spiritual guide used to say "In love, we respond to what is good; in mercy we respond to what is not good and seek to make it good." The challenge God puts before us each time I pray as Jesus taught -- again the Lord's Prayer -- requires great strength because I have to remove resentment, anger, even unfriendliness toward another or others. We have to be strong enough to say, "Father, as best as I can, I forgive everyone" when we start to pray.
