Stewards of God’s Mercy

From Dan Conway’s The Good Steward, May 2005

The Church is founded upon forgiveness. Peter himself is a personal embodiment of this truth, for he is permitted to be the bearer of the keys after having stumbled, confessed and received the grace of pardon. The Church is by nature the home of forgiveness, and it is thus that chaos is banished within her. She is held together by forgiveness, and Peter is the perpetual living reminder of this reality she is not a communion of the perfect but a communion of sinners who need and seek forgiveness. (Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, in Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today, 1996.)

In the prayer that Jesus taught us (the Lord’s Prayer), we ask our Father not only to forgive our sins but also to help us forgive those who have sinned against us. We pray for the ability to forgive because we know that it does not come easily.

Forgiveness restores broken relationships – in marriage and family life, in our neighborhoods and parish communities, in our archdiocese and the Church Universal, and in the tensions among nations that can shatter our hopes for peace in the world. When we forgive those who have wronged us, we move beyond ourselves and the hurts or injustices done to us – however real these may be – to restore the relationships of love, friendship and true community that make unity and peace possible. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, forgiveness “banishes chaos” because it restores harmony and creates solidarity among people who might otherwise be consumed with hatred or the desire for revenge …

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