The Catechism of the Council of Trent/Part 4: Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
"AND FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS, AS WE ALSO FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS."
"FORGIVE us OUR DEBTS"] Many things display the infinite power of God, his wisdom and goodness. Cast our eyes, turn our thoughts, where we may, we are struck with unequivocal manifestations of his omnipotence and goodness; but if there be any one thing which, more than another, eloquently proclaims his boundless love for man, that most assuredly is the ineffable mystery of the passion of Jesus Christ, that perennial fountain which washes away the defilements of sin, and in which, under the guidance and goodness of God, we desire to be merged and purified, when we address him in these words: " Forgive us our debts."
This petition comprises a summary, as it were, of those benefits which have been accumulated on the human race through the merits of Jesus Christ, as was foretold by Isaias: " The iniquity of the house of David shall be forgiven, and this is all the fruit, that the sin thereof should be taken away." [1] This is also the language of David, proclaiming those blessed who have the happiness to partake of that fruit: " Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven." [2] The pastor, therefore, will examine and explain, with minute attention, a petition so important to salvation.
In it we enter on a new form of prayer: in the preceding petitions, we ask from God not only spiritual and eternal, but also temporal and transient blessings; but in this we deprecate the evils of the body and of the soul, of this life, and of the life to come. As, however, to obtain the object of our prayers, we must pray as we ought, it appears expedient to explain the dispositions, with which this prayer should be offered to God. The pastor, then, will admonish the faithful, that he who comes to offer this petition must, first, acknowledge, and, in the next place, feel compunction for his sins. He must also firmly believe that God is willing to pardon the sinner when thus disposed, lest, possibly, the bitter remembrance and acknowledgment of his sins may lead the sinner to despair of mercy, as was the case with Cain, [3] and Judas, [4] who looked on God as an avenger of crime, and not, also, as a God of clemency and of mercy. In presenting this petition to the throne of God, we should, therefore, be so disposed as that, whilst we acknowledge our sins in the bitterness of our souls, we also fly to him as to a Father, not a Judge, imploring him to deal with us not in his justice but in his mercy.
We shall be easily induced to acknowledge our sins, if we but listen to God himself declaring by the mouth of David, " They are all gone aside; they are become unprofitable together; there is none that doth good, no not one." [5] Solomon speaks to the same effect; " There is no just man upon earth, that doth good and sinneth not;" [6] and to this subject, are also applicable these words of Proverbs; " Who can say, my heart is clean, and I am pure from sin?" [7] St. John also makes use of the same sentiment as an argument against pride: " If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us;" [8] and the Prophet Jeremiah, "Thou hast said, I am without sin and am innocent; and therefore, let thy anger be turned away from me. Behold, I will contend with thee in judgment, because thou hast said, I have not sinned." [9] These sentiments Christ our Lord, who spoke by their lips, confirms in this petition, in which he command us to confess our sins; and the Council of Milevis forbids to interpret it otherwise: "Whoever says, that these words of the Lord's Prayer, for give us our debts, are to be said by holy men in humility, and not in truth, let him be anathema." [10] How wicked to pray, and at the same time to lie, not to men but to God; and yet this is the crime of him, who, with his lips, says that he asks to be forgiven, but, in his heart, that he has no debts to be forgiven. [11]
In the acknowledgment of our sins, it is not enough that we call them to mind lightly; we must recount them with bitter regret; the heart must be pierced with compunction; the soul must melt with sorrow. On this subject of compunction, therefore, the pastor will bestow his best attention, in order that his hearers may not only recall to their recollection their sins and iniquities, but may, also, recall them with tears of penitential sorrow; that, penetrated with heartfelt contrition, they may betake themselves to God their Father, humbly imploring him to pluck from the soul the poisoned stings of sin.
The zeal of the pastor should not, however, content itself with sketching the turpitude of sin; it should also depict the unworthiness and baseness of man, who, rottenness and corruption that he is, dares to outrage the majesty of God, which no created intelligence can comprehend, and his transcendant dignity, which no created tongue can describe. This picture of the baseness of man borrows a deeper shade from the consideration, that God has created us; that he has redeemed us; and that his goodness has heaped upon us countless blessings, the value of which is not to be appreciated. And why thus grossly outrage God? That, estranged from our Father, the supreme good, and lured by the base rewards of sin, we may devote ourselves to the devil, to become his wretched slaves. Language is inadequate to describe the cruel tyranny which he exercises over those, who, having shaken off the sweet yoke of Christ, and having broken the bond of love which binds the soul to God our Father, have gone over to their relentless enemy, the devil. Therefore, is he called in Scripture, " The prince and ruler of this world," [12] " the prince of darkness," [13] " and king over all the children of pride;" [14] and to those who are thus the victims of his tyranny, apply with great truth these words of Isaias: " O Lord our God, other lords besides thee have had dominion over us." [15]
Are we so insensible as to be unmoved by the base violation of the sacred covenant which bound us to God? If so, let our insensibility yield, at least, to the calamities and miseries into which sin plunges its votaries. It violates the sanctity of the soul, which is wedded to Jesus Christ; it profanes the temple of the living God; and it thus involves the sinner in the awful denunciation conveyed by the Apostle in these words: " If any violate the temple of God, him shall God destroy." [16] Innumerable are the evils of which sin is the poisoned source; their magnitude is thus expressed by David: " There is no health in my flesh, because of thy wrath; there is no peace for my bones, because of my sins." [17] He marks the virulence of the disease, by declaring that it left no part of his frame uninfected; the poison of sin entered even into his very bones; in other words, it infected his understanding, and his will, the two great faculties of the soul. Describing this wide-spreading and destructive contagion, the sacred Scriptures designate sinners by " the lame," " the deaf," " the dumb," " the paralyzed."
But, besides the anguish which he felt on account of the wickedness of his sins, David was afflicted yet more by the consciousness of having provoked the wrath of God. The wicked are at war with God, whom their crimes so grievously offend. " Wrath and indignation," says the Apostle, " tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that worketh evil." [18] The sinful act, it is true, is transient, but the guilt of sin remains; and that guilt the wrath of God pursues as the shadow follows the body. Pierced by these stings of the divine wrath, David was excited to sue for the pardon of his sins; and that the faithful, imitating the royal penitent, may learn to grieve, that is, to become truly contrite, and to cherish the hope of pardon, the pastor will place before their eyes and press upon their attention, the example of his penitential sorrow, and the lessons of instruction which it conveys. [19]
The importance of such instruction in teaching us to grieve for our sins, God himself declares by the mouth of his prophet: exhorting Israel to repentance, he admonishes her to awake to a sense of the evils which flow from sin: " Know thou, and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee, to have left the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not with thee, saith the Lord the God of Hosts." [20] They who are strangers to these sentiments, who know not these feelings of heartfelt sorrow, are said by the Prophets Isaias, Ezekiel, and Zachary, to have " hard hearts," [21] "stony hearts," [22] " hearts of adamant;" [23] like stone they are insensible to all feeling of sorrow, and devoid of every principle of life, that is, of the salutary consciousness of their own infatuation and abandonment.
But lest, terrified by the enormity of his crimes, the sinner despair of obtaining pardon, the pastor will animate him to hope by the following considerations; he will remind him that Christ our Lord gave power to his Church to remit sins, as is declared in one of the articles of the Creed; and that this petition makes known to us the extent of the divine goodness and bounty towards us, for if God were not disposed to pardon the penitent sinner, he would not have commanded him to ask for pardon: " Forgive us our debts." We should, therefore, be firmly convinced, that commanding us, as he does, to solicit, he will, also, extend to us his paternal compassion; the petition fully implies that God is so disposed towards us, that he is willing to pardon the truly penitent. True, he is that God against whom we sin by disobedience; the designs of whose wisdom we frustrate, as far as depends on us; whom we offend, whom we outrage in word and deed; but he is, also, a most beneficent Father, who has it in his power to pardon all our transgressions; and who not only declares his willingness to exercise this power, but also urges us to sue to him for pardon, and teaches us how to ask it. It cannot, therefore, be matter of doubt that, with his gracious assistance, we have it in our power to conciliate the divine favour. This attestation of the willingness of God to pardon sin, increases faith, nurtures hope, and inflames charity; and it will, therefore, be found useful to enlarge upon this subject by citing Scriptural authorities to this effect, and by referring to examples of individuals whose repentance God rewarded with the pardon of the most grievous crimes. As, however, in our exposition of the prefatory words of the prayer, and of that part of the creed which speaks of the forgiveness of sins, we have been as diffuse on the subject as its matter required, the pastor will revert to those places for whatever he may deem necessary for further illustration; the rest he will draw from the fountains of inspired wisdom. He will also pursue the same plan of instruction which was fol lowed in the other petitions, making known to the faithful the meaning of the word " debts;" without this knowledge they may ask for something different from the real objects which this petition contemplates.
In the first place, then, we are to know that in it we pray not for exemption from the debt due to God on so many accounts, the payment of which is essential to salvation; that of loving him with our whole heart, our whole soul, and with all our strength. Neither do we ask to be exempted from the duties of obedience, worship, veneration, or any similar obligation included in the word " debt." We pray to be delivered from our sins: this is the interpretation of St. Luke, who, instead of " debt," makes use of the word " sins;" [24] for by their commission we become guilty before God, and incur a debt of punishment, which we must liquidate by satisfaction or by suffering. Such was the debt of which Christ spoke by the mouth of his prophet; " Then did I pay that which I took not away;" [25] from which we may infer that we are only debtors, but also unequal to the payment of the debts which we contract. Of himself the sinner is totally incapable of making satisfaction: we must, therefore, fly to the divine mercy; and as justice, of which God is most tenacious, is an equal and corresponding attribute to mercy, we must have recourse to prayer, and to the advocacy of the passion of Christ, without which, no one ever obtained the pardon of sin; from which, as from its source, flow all the force and efficacy of satisfaction. Such is the value of the price paid by Christ our Lord on the cross, and communicated to us through the sacraments received either actually or in desire, that it obtains and accomplishes for us the pardon of our sins, which is the object of our prayer in this petition. We ask pardon not only for our venial offences, for which pardon may be easily obtained, but also for grievous mortal sins, of which the petition cannot procure forgiveness, unless it derive that efficacy from the Sacrament of Penance received, as we have already said, either actually or in desire.
The word "our," is here used in a sense entirely different from that in which we said, "our daily bread;" that bread is ours," because given us by the munificence of God; the sins which we commit are " ours," because with us rests their guilt. They are our own free acts, otherwise they could not be imputed to us as sins; sustaining, therefore, the weight, and confessing the guilt of our sins, we implore the divine clemency, which is necessary for their expiation. In this confession we seek not to palliate our guilt, nor to transfer the blame to others, as our first parents Adam and Eve did; [26] no, we unbosom ourselves unreservedly, and as we really are, pouring out, if we are wise, the prayer of the prophet: " Incline not my heart to evil words, to make excuses in sins." [27]
We do not say, "forgive me," but "forgive us;" because, in virtue of the fraternal relation and mutual charity subsisting between all men, we are each bound to be solicitous for the common salvation of all; and, when we pray for ourselves, it is our duty to pray also for others. This manner of praying, delivered by our Lord, and subsequently received and always retained by the Church of God, was most strictly observed and enforced by the Apostles. In the Old and New Testaments we find this ardent zeal and intense earnestness in praying for the salvation of others, strikingly exemplified in the conduct of Moses and of Paul; the former besought God in these words: " Either forgive them this trespass; or, if thou dost not, strike me out of the book that thou hast, written;" [28] the latter: " I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for sake of my brethren." [29]
"As WE ALSO FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS"] The word " as," may be understood in two senses: it has the force of a companson when we beg of God to pardon us our sins, as we pardon the wrongs and contumelies which we receive at the hands of those who injure us. It also marks a condition, and in this sense we find it interpreted by Christ our Lord: "If you will forgive men their offences, your Heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences: but if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences." [30] Either sense, however, equally implies the necessity of forgiveness on our part, intimating, as it does, that, to obtain from God the pardon of our offences, we must also extend pardon to those from whom we may have received injury. Such is the rigour with which God exacts from us the pardon of injuries, and the tribute of mutual affection and love, that he rejects and despises the gifts and sacrifices of those who are not reconciled one to another. To conduct ourselves towards others, as we would have them to demean themselves towards us, is an obligation founded also upon the law of nature; unparalleled, then, must be the effrontery of him, who, whilst feelings of hostility to a brother rankles in his breast, solicits from God the pardon of offences.
Those, therefore, who have sustained injuries from others, should be prepared and prompt to pardon, urged to it as they are, by this form of prayer, and also by the command of God: "If thy brother sin against thee, reprove him; and if he sin against thee seven times in a day, and seven times a day be converted unto thee, saying, I repent, forgive him." [31] The Apostle, too, and before him Solomon, said, "If thine enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him to drink;" [32] and we read in St. Mark: " When thou standest to pray, for give, if thou hast ought against any man; that also your Father who is in heaven may forgive you your sins." [33]
But as, owing to the corruption of our nature, there is nothing to which man yields a more reluctant assent than to the pardon of injuries, the pastor will exert all the powers and all the resources of his mind to bend the obstinacy of the faithful to this exercise of mildness and mercy, so necessary to a Christian. He will dwell on those passages of the divine oracles, in which we hear God himself commanding us to pardon our enemies; and will proclaim, and it is strictly true, that a disposition to forgive injuries, and to love their enemies from the heart, is the strongest evidence of their being the children of God. By loving our enemies we image forth, in some sort, the loving forbearance of God, our Father, who, by the death of his Son, ransomed from everlasting perdition, and reconciled to himself the human race, who before were his avowed enemies. To close this instruction the pastor will urge the command of Christ our Lord, to which the Christian cannot refuse obedience without degrading himself to the lowest degree, and bringing confusion on his guilty head: " Pray for them that persecute and calumniate you, that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven." [34]
This, however, is a subject which demands consummate prudence on the part of the pastor, lest, disheartened by the difficulty, and yet knowing the necessity, of observing this precept, any of his hearers should yield to despondency. There are some who, aware of the obligation of burying in voluntary oblivion the injuries which they may have sustained, and of loving those by whom they have been inflicted, desire to comply with these duties, and do comply with them as far as they are able, and yet find that they cannot entirely obliterate from their minds the recollection of the injuries which they have suffered. There still lurks in the mind some lingering grudge, which harrows up conscience, and fills the mind with alarming apprehensions, lest, not having simply and sincerely forgiven, they may be guilty of disobedience to the command of God. The pastor, therefore, will here explain the opposite desires of the flesh and of the spirit; the one prone to revenge, the other prepared to pardon; from which contrariety arise continued struggles and conflicts. He will show that, if the appetites of corrupt nature are ever reclaiming against, and opposed to the dictates of reason, we are not, however, to yield to any misgivings regarding our salvation, provided the spirit perseveres in the duty and determination of forgiving injuries, and of loving every being stamped with the image of God.
Some, perhaps, there are, who, because they have not yet succeeded in bringing themselves to forgive injuries, and to love their enemies, are deterred by the condition contained in this petition, as already explained, from repeating the Lord's Prayer. To remove from their minds so pernicious an error, the pastor will adduce the two following considerations: first, that whoever belongs to the number of the faithful offers this prayer in the name of the entire Church, which must necessarily contain within its pale some pious persons, who have forgiven their debtors the debts mentioned in the petition; and secondly, that when we offer this prayer to God, we also pray for whatever is necessary to enable us to comply with the petition. We pray for the pardon of our sins, and the gift of sincere repentance: we pray for a deep sense of sorrow: we pray for a hatred of sin; and we pray for the grace of confessing our offences truly and piously to the minister of God. As, then, it is necessary that we pardon those who have done us injury or injustice, when we ask pardon of God, we also ask strength to be reconciled to those, against whom we harbour feelings of hatred. It, there fore, becomes the duty of the pastor to correct the gross and dangerous error of those, who fear that to utter this prayer would be to exasperate the anger of God; an apprehension as groundless as it is mischievous. It is his to exhort them to the frequent use of this prayer, in which they beseech God our Father, to grant them grace to pardon those who have injured them, and to love those who have hated them.
But that our prayer be heard, we should first seriously reflect that we are suppliants at the throne of God, soliciting from him that pardon which he never refuses to the penitent; that we should therefore, possess that charity, and that piety which become penitents; and that it becomes us in a special manner to keep before our eyes our crimes and enormities, and to expiate them with our tears. To this consideration we should add the greatest circumspection in guarding for the future against the occasion of sin, and against whatever may possibly expose us to the danger of offending God our Father. Of these precautions David was not unmindful: " My sin," says he, " is always before me; [35] and again: " I will water my couch with my tears. " [36] Let each one also propose to himself the glowing fervour which animated the prayers of those, who besought God to pardon their sins, and who obtained the object of their earnest entreaties; such as the publican, who, through shame and grief, standing afar off, with eyes fixed on the ground, smote his breast, crying, "O God, be merciful to me a sinner;" [37] and also the woman, " a sinner," who, having washed the feet of our Lord, and wiped them with her hair, kissed them; [38] and lastly, Peter the prince of the Apostles, who, "going forth wept bitterly." [39]
They should next consider that the weaker men are, and the more liable to moral contagion, the greater the necessity they are under of having recourse to numerous and frequent remedies: the remedies of a soul labouring under spiritual disease are penance and the Holy Eucharist; and to these, therefore, they should have frequent recourse. The Sacred Scriptures inform us that alms-deeds are also an efficacious remedy for healing the wounds of the soul. Those, therefore, who desire to offer up this prayer with pious dispositions , should kindly assist the poor according to the means with which Providence has blessed them. That alms exert a powerful influence in effacing the stains of sin we learn from these words of Tobias: " Alms deliver from death, and the same is that which purgeth away sins, and maketh to find mercy and life everlasting." [40] To the same truth Daniel bears testimony, when, admonishing Nebuchodonoser, he says: " Redeem thou thy sins with alms, and thy iniquities with works of mercy to the poor." [41]
But the highest species of benevolence, and the most commendable exercise of mercy, is to forget injuries, and to cherish good-will towards those who injure us, or ours, in person, property, or character. Whoever, therefore, desires to experience in a special manner the mercy of God, let him present to God all his enmities, pardon every offence, and pray for his enemies from his heart, embracing every opportunity of deserving well of them. This, however, is a subject which we have already explained, when treating of murder, and to that exposition we, therefore, refer the pastor. He will, however, conclude what he has to say on this petition with the reflection, that nothing is or can be imagined more unjust than that he, who is so rigorous towards his fellow-man as to extend indulgence to no one, should demand of God to be gracious and merciful towards himself.
- ↑ Isa. xxvii.
- ↑ Ps. xxxi. 1.
- ↑ Gen. iv. 13.
- ↑ Matt, xxvii. 4, 5.
- ↑ Ps. xiii. 3.
- ↑ Eccl. vii. 21.
- ↑ Prov. xx. 9.
- ↑ John i. 8.
- ↑ Jer. ii. 25.
- ↑ Conc. Milev. c.7 9
- ↑ Vid. Trid. sess. 6. de justificatione c. 11. item Aug. in Ench. c. 17.
- ↑ John xiv. 30.
- ↑ Eph. vi. 12.
- ↑ Job xli.25.
- ↑ Is xxvi. 13.
- ↑ Cor. iii. 17.
- ↑ Ps. xxxvii. 4.
- ↑ Rom.ii.8,9.
- ↑ Ps. l.
- ↑ Jer.ii. 19.
- ↑ Is. xlvi. 12.
- ↑ Ezek. ixxvi. 26.
- ↑ Zach. vii. 12
- ↑ Luke xi. 4.
- ↑ Ps, lxviii. 5.
- ↑ Gen. iii. 12, 13.
- ↑ Ps. cx i. 4.
- ↑ Exodus xxxii. 32.
- ↑ Rom. ix. 3.
- ↑ Matt. vi. 14.
- ↑ Luke xvii. 3.
- ↑ Rom. xii. 20. Prov. xxv. 21, 22
- ↑ Mark xi. 25.
- ↑ Matt. v. 41.
- ↑ Ps. 1. 5.
- ↑ Ps. vi. 7.
- ↑ Luke xviii. 13.
- ↑ Luke vii. 38.
- ↑ Matt. xxvi. 75.
- ↑ Tob. xii. 9.
- ↑ Dan. iv. 24.