This Sunday’s readings: Matthew 12:30-32
Reflections
Of course God will forgive me; that’s His job.
~ Heinrich Heine, 1797-1856, German literary critic, writer
Those who think they are healthy but have a hidden moral cancer are incurable; the sick who want to be healed have a chance. All denial of guilt keeps people out of the area of love and, by inducing self-righteousness, prevents a cure. The two facts of healing in the physical order are these: A physician cannot heal us unless we put ourselves into his hands, and we will not put ourselves into his hands unless we know that we are sick.
~ Fulton J. Sheen, 1895-1979, American Catholic archbishop
That we are capable, only of being what we are, remains our unforgivable sin.
~ Gene Wolfe, 1931-2019, Am. Author, The Claw of the Conciliator
Christian tradition thinks of genuine repentance not as a human possibility but as a gift of God. It is not just that we do not like being wrong, but that almost invariably the others are not completely right either. As Carl Gustav Jung observed after World War II, most confessions come as a mixture of repentance, self-defense, and even some lust for revenge. We admit wrongdoing, justify ourselves, and attack, all in one breath.
~ Miroslav Volf, 1956- , Theologian/Author
I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hate so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, that they will be forced to deal with pain.
~ James Baldwin, 1924-1987, Author, Notes of a Native Son
Forgiveness is an outrage against straight-line dues-paying morality.
~ Lewis Smedes, 1921-2002, Author, Forgive and Forget
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know. It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall use our intelligence…. No philosophy is completely disinterested.
~ Aldous Huxley, 1894-1963, English writer, Philosopher