At Wednesday's General Audience, the Pope reflected on Jesus' gesture of offering bread to Judas at the Last Supper, stressing that it was a last attempt of love not to give up. He pointed out that true forgiveness does not wait for repentance, but is offered as a free gift, even in the face of betrayal. Faced with the temptation of resentment and revenge, he invited the faithful to live the power of love that forgives and liberates, remembering that, like Jesus, we are called to respond to evil with good and to transform the wound of betrayal into an opportunity for salvation.
These are some of the best phrases from the catechesis on forgiveness:
"God does everything, absolutely everything, to reach us, even at the moment when we reject him."
"The love of Jesus does not deny the truth of pain, but does not allow evil to be the last word."
"To forgive does not mean to deny evil, but to prevent it from generating more evil. It is not to say that nothing happened, but to do everything possible so that it is not rancor that decides the future".
"We, too, live through painful and exhausting nights. Nights of the soul, nights of disappointment, nights when someone has hurt or betrayed us. In those moments, the temptation is to close ourselves off, to protect ourselves, to strike back. But the Lord shows us hope that there is always another way. He teaches us that we can offer a morsel even to those who turn their backs on us. That we can respond with the silence of trust. And that we can go forward with dignity, without renouncing love".
"Today we ask for the grace to know how to forgive, even when we do not feel understood, even when we feel abandoned. For it is precisely in those moments that love can reach its peak. As Jesus teaches us, to love means to set the other free - even to betray - without ever ceasing to believe that even that freedom, wounded and lost, can be wrested from the deceitfulness of darkness and restored to the light of good."
"When the light of forgiveness manages to filter through the deepest cracks of the heart, we understand that it is never useless. Even if the other does not welcome it, even if it seems vain, forgiveness frees the one who offers it: it dissolves resentment, restores peace, gives us back ourselves."
