We affirm that Jesus prayed from the cross: “Father, forgive them…” A prayer that upholds another precept taken from our Jewish heritage. Three central commandments from the Jewish faith are equally central to the Christian faith: to love God, our neighbor, and to forgive one another are at the heart of our moral characters, and prayer is a central activity. Let us stop to consider forgiveness. If we are to love our neighbors, is it not important to forgive them? Have you ever known of a relationship with even the most loved person you did not need to ask for forgiveness or to forgive? If your answer is ‘yes’, then you must know a perfect person. In other words, to love is to forgive and to be forgiven. To love the stranger, we often need to request forgiveness, for often, it is our own labeling of the person that has caused them to be a stranger to us. We create outsiders, strangers, because they are different than we are and we do not want to deal with them. Hence, forgiveness is necessary for us to enter into a healthy relationship with them.
