Quotes about Forgiveness

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. There is no path toward love except by practicing love. War will always produce more war. Violence can never bring about true peace.

Amazing that we made Jesus into the consummate answer giver because that is not what he usually does. He more often leads us right onto the horns of our own human-made dilemmas, where we are forced to meet God and be honest with ourselves. He creates problems for us more than resolves them, problems that very often cannot be resolved by all-or-nothing thinking but only by love and forgiveness.

the Twelve Steps, however, believes that sin and failure are, in fact, the setting and opportunity for the transformation and enlightenment of the offender

forgiveness always heals; it does not matter whether you are Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic or Jewish. Forgiveness is one of the patterns that is always true, it is part of The Story. There is no specifically Catholic way to feed the hungry or to steward the earth.

The way to transmute the pain of life is to reveal the wounded side of things, evil, even, and then place the wound inside of sacred space. The Bible is about naming, facing, and then forgiving the wounds of history.

Forgiveness is to let go of our hope for a different or better past." It is what it is, and such acceptance leads to great freedom, as long as there is also accountability and healing in the process.

We have been graced for a truly sweet surrender, if we can radically accept being radically accepted—for nothing! "Or grace would not be grace at all"! (Romans 11:6).

Salvation is not sin perfectly avoided, as the ego would prefer; but in fact, salvation is sin turned on its head and used in our favor.

You will know salvation through the mystery of forgiveness" (Luke 2:77).

Say five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys as a penance" still perpetuated a de facto notion of a juridical exchange instead of any deep experience of healing forgiveness or unearned grace. You cannot deal with spiritual things in a courtroom manner. It does not achieve its purpose; it does not work at a deep level. We forgot our own unique job description as people of the Gospel and imitated courts of law instead.

The Crucified and Risen Christ uses the mistakes of the past to create a positive future, a future of redemption instead of retribution. He does not eliminate or punish the mistakes. He uses them for transformative purposes.

Even with all the best intentions in the world, given our different temperaments, backgrounds, and the way we process our data and information, we are going to step on one another's toes. Two people with absolutely good will can deeply hurt one another. Good people hurt one another because we all come at reality in different ways. That's why, for Jesus, the only way to achieve union is through forgiveness, not through making sin impossible.