Forgiveness

How can one find within oneself the strength to forgive? The sublimity of forgiveness is the death of Christ on Golgotha! Now, I have already told you that Christ had summed up in his life all human anguishes and struggles. All those who deserved the name of Christians before Jesus Christ died with forgiveness on their lips: the defenders of oppressed liberties, the martyrs of truths and of great causes, understood so well the loftiness and the sublimity of their lives that they did not falter at the last moment and forgave. If the forgiveness of Augustus is not entirely sublime from the historical point of view, the Augustus of Corneille, the great tragedian, is master of himself as of the Universe, because he forgives. Ah! how petty and miserable are those who possessed the world and did not forgive! How great is he who contained, in the future of the centuries, all the spiritual humanities and forgave! Forgiveness is an inspiration and, very often, a counsel of the Spirits. Unhappy are those who close their hearts to that voice: they will be punished, as the Scripture says, for they had ears and did not listen. Well then! if you wish to forgive, if you feel weak before yourselves, contemplate the death of Christ. He who knows himself easily triumphs over himself. This is why the great principle of ancient wisdom was, above all, to know oneself. Before entering the struggle, the athletes were taught, for the games and grand contests, the sure means of winning. Alongside this, in the lyceums, Socrates taught that there was a Supreme Being and, some time later, centuries before Christ, taught the whole Greek nation to die and to forgive. The vicious, despicable, and weak man does not forgive; the man accustomed to personal struggles, to just and sound reflections, forgives easily. Lamennais. n [1]

[v. Lamennais.]