On the grace of forgiveness & the work it entails

"forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil." These are words that Christians pray all the time, daily even. Currently, I am having an interior struggle, the specifics of which I am not going to bore you with. As I prayed the first Our Father of Our Lady's Rosary yesterday, it dawned on me that perhaps the evil to which we are tempted is not to forgive those who trespass against. More, specifically, perhaps the evil to which I am tempted is not to forgive those who have trespassed against me.

I certainly think that is a useful and not wholly inaccurate way of understanding these two clauses, which in Engish translation, together form an independent clause as part of the Our Father. Hard-heartedness is real. Many days, I would rather not forgive. I would rather get even or perhaps prevail, triumph. Other times, it seems weirdly good to hold onto my grudges and resentments. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know refusing to forgive is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. I guess I'll just add the observation that it is a slow death.

Forgiveness is work, sometimes hard work. Forgiveness is grace. Just as we can only love because we are first loved, we can forgive only because we are first forgiven. More than that, before we can really be forgiven we must forgive. Isn't this why Jesus, in the Lord's Prayer, makes this conditional? Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against. This conditional is found in Greek. In his indispensable, no-frills, translation of the New Testament, David Bentley Hart renders it thus: "And excuse us our debts, just as we have excused our debtors."

So, we can only forgive because we've been forgiven and we must forgive to be forgiven. What this indicates to me is the ongoing nature of transformation. As Paul urges, we must be willing to engage in the agon, the struggle. Grace and effort are not mutually exclusive. It's important to keep in mind that grace is given for my effort, not earned as a result of it.