I have been thinking much about the labor, the grace, and the art of asking for forgiveness lately. Not only are we, as Christians, in the season of Lent, we have also recently witnessed (yet again) very public performances of the “I am so sorry”-variety. I was probably not the only one who watched Tiger Woods’s televised version of such an “I am so sorry” after I had earlier pondered the Psalm for that day. It was after all \u2013 in an interesting coincidence — the first Friday in Lent. The psalm was Psalm 51. A few days after Tiger Woods\u2019s apology, I watched in dismay as the presiding bishop of the German Lutheran Church, Margot K\u00e4\u00dfmann, resigned from her episcopal office with a terse televised statement, having been arrested for drunk driving the week-end before. And the mea culpa litanies coming out of Germany in response to new revelations about the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests there seem endless (centers of liturgical learning, sadly, are implicated as well).<\/p>\n
How do we ask for forgiveness authentically? What is needed for the sound of our asking to ring true, and deeply so? (I remember a spectacularly na\u00efve request for forgiveness I received a few years ago, and I still cringe in pain). One thing I do know: being able to say, straightforwardly, the words \u201cforgive me\u201d is a step in the right direction. The simple words say so much more than \u201cI am sorry.\u201d For one, \u201cforgive me\u201d voices a direct request to another, who by these two words is rendered visible as the one who has been wronged.<\/p>\n
This brings me to the heart of what I have been thinking about, namely the confession of sins that many of us repeat during the Sunday celebration of Mass: I confess to Almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters that I have sinned\u2026 The beginning of this confession is not without promise. What follows, however, stops sadly short, I think. The prayer continues with a request to Mary, the angels and saints, and the gathered faithful, to pray for me. Amen. The End. Would one not expect, somewhere in this confession of sins, a straightforward pleading for forgiveness, something as simple as Forgive me, God, all that is past?
\nIf asking for forgiveness does not come that easily to us human beings and is indeed both labor and art, should the liturgy not lead the way in embodying how to do this, authentically, deeply, and credibly? Why this silence in the confession of sins? We surely will not learn the labor and art of asking for forgiveness from watching televised apologies, however prominent the speakers. Only grace can truly teach us how to ask and pray for forgiveness.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Psalm 51 remains an excellent start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How do we ask for forgiveness authentically? What is needed for the sound of our asking to ring true, and deeply so? (I remember a spectacularly na\u00efve request for forgiveness I received a few years ago, and I still cringe in pain). One thing I do know: being able to say, straightforwardly, the words \u201cforgive me\u201d is a step in the right direction. The simple words say so much more than \u201cI am sorry.\u201d For one, \u201cforgive me\u201d voices a direct request to another, who by these two words is rendered visible as the one who has been wronged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19,17],"tags":[687,78,61],"class_list":["post-1142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mass","category-liturgical-spirituality","tag-forgiveness","tag-lent","tag-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\n