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Show TRUE FORGIVENESS. The forgiveness is one of the highest high-est attainments of spiritual charity. It is much more than forgetting a wrong done us; it is even remembering remember-ing it without the least resentment or hostility, and not allowing It to affect our friendship to the one who has injured us; it is free from Indifference Indiffer-ence towards and desire to avoid him; it is loving him more and seeking to make the bonds of friendship the stronger because of the strain. True forgiveness regards uppermost the welfare of the offender, and seeks to help him out of error, ill-feeling, and antipathy; it does not ask for apology or for atonement; it does not wait for the offender to make the advances, ad-vances, or acknowledge his mistake; forgiveness is aggressive, not passive; it reaches out towards the real good in the one forgiven. We may reach such forgiveness by trying to see the other one's side, to appreciate his point of view and aroused feelings; by realizing what there is good in him that we may help by our friendship; by being conscious of our own imperfections and need of forgiveness. We are apt, like the disciple, dis-ciple, to recognize a limit to forgiveness; forgive-ness; but our Lord taught that forgiveness for-giveness must be as full as love until "seventy times seven" offences. |