Christianity

Prayers of Confession

• Forgiveness: An Arduous Journey
• As We Forgive
• Prayer of Confession

Forgiveness: An Arduous Journey

by Virginia Mackey

Individually and as a people we are in need of forgiveness.

First, for our negative views of human nature, the ways we parents fail to affirm the beauty and potential of each child, as judgmental, willing to designate expendable or throw-away people, and believe in punishment.

Second, we are in need of forgiveness for our inadequacies in relating to victims; we are called to assure them that they have a home in the faith community where it is safe to share their pain and find helping working it through.

Third, we are in need of forgiveness for tolerating increasing inequities and lack of opportunities in our nation. Gandhi has been quotes as saying, "The deadliest form of violence is poverty."

Fourth, we are in need of forgiveness for correctional and school policies of suspension and expulsion based on punishment, shame, and humiliation. These policies perpetuate the very causes of violence.

What makes forgiveness an aspect of restorative justice for victim, offender and community? Because we can learn new ways of responding that are freeing to us individually and can also change our national character. They can help us prevent violence and build healthy, safe communities.

Forgiveness requires a giant leap of faith. It has no strings attached. It does not require repentance by encourages repentance because the very dynamics of the situation have changed. The journey, of course, is easier if it is mutual. Restorative justice strives for mutuality.

(Quoted in Justice Jottings, Feb. 1999 pp.8-10)

As We Forgive

Lord, you who expressed Your Divine Anger in fire, brimstone and lightning,
look down with understanding upon my anger.

I am in pain,
a wound in my heart caused by another is the source of this suffering.

That heart of mine, Lord of Hearts, is filled with anger
so that I am unable to be loving and caring.
I want to return injury for injury, pain for pain, and so cannot desire to forgive the other.

Lord, you and I both know that such an attitude is wrong;
Yet it is very real and its pain overflows into my whole life.
Before I can come to the point of wanting to forgive and to be forgiven (if that is necessary),
I must find an antidote for the person of this attitude.

Lord, I need your help for my feelings are confused, and so I need to find some order among them.
I need to see how this separation has come about
And how I can make some steps toward mending my broken communion.
I pause now, to exchange places
And to look at the cause of the separation through the eyes of the other who has injured me.

-Pause for silent examination-

Lord God of compassion as well as Holy Anger,
may I see how that which angers me in the other iIs also a part of my person which I repel.
Help me to own that part of me and thus begin to know my oneness with the other.

May this passover of mine to the other's side make me ready for a solution to this division,
And may my desire for communion soak up the poison in my heart.
Lead me, forgiving Lord, to the graces of reconciliation,
So that this relationship which is dead may be resurrected to fuller life.

Through your Holy and Healing power.

Amen

(excerpt from Worship Materials prepared by Melissa Miller and Dave Worth Mennonite Central Committee (Ontario), Feb. 1983

Prayer of Confession

Gracious God, we thank you that despite our brokenness and sins, you forgive us and continue to love us unconditionally. We confess that, although we are grateful for your forgiveness, we find it very difficult to forgive others. Empower us to break forth from the fetters of anger and self-righteousness to view the offender as your child. May we care for others as you have cared for us. We pray this through the Christ who told us to forgive seven times seventy.

Richard Killmer, Forgiveness (Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, 1996), p.8)