Forgive us… as we forgive… 1
Our Father Who Art in the Heavens
Forgive us… as we forgive… 1
A confession from the worshipper that he is a sinner and in need of forgiveness
The forgiveness of the worshipper for those who have wronged him is a condition for receiving forgiveness
We ask forgiveness even for sins we do not know
Judge yourself before prayer, so that you may pray it from your heart
We do not justify ourselves before God, but we confess and ask for forgiveness
We continue our meditations on the Lord’s Prayer, and we had spoken in the previous issue about the petition, “Give us… our bread,” and in this article we wish to meditate together on the petition of forgiveness, which is: Forgive us our trespasses “what is upon us” as we also forgive those who trespass against us.
And the first thing we notice in this petition is that the one who prays stands before God as a sinner, asking Him for forgiveness. God has taught us to stand before Him in this way. And St. John the Apostle affirms this meaning when he says:
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn 1:8). And St. James the Apostle likewise says, “For in many things we all stumble” (Jas 3:2). And St. Paul the Apostle calls himself “the chief of sinners,” and the Church teaches us in her prayers that no one is without sin, even if his life were only one day on earth… Therefore when we stand to pray, we say to the Lord, “Forgive us”… for thus He taught us…
If someone were without sin, then he would have no need to say this petition!
But Holy Scripture has recorded for us sins in which the patriarchs and prophets fell, and it said, “For she has cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong.”
This petition, then, gives us the idea that we are in need of salvation every day… And perhaps some ask here:
What then is the meaning of salvation and renewal which we received in baptism?
What is the meaning of the phrase, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved” (Mk 16:16)? And what is the meaning of “newness of life” and “the crucifixion of the old man!” (Rom 6:4, 6)? And what is the meaning of the Apostle’s saying, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal 3:27)?
Truly, we received all this in baptism, but there is an important point, which is:
We received renewal in baptism, but we did not receive infallibility.
There is no human being who is infallible, but how wondrous is the saying of St. James the Apostle about the great saint Elijah the Prophet: “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours” (Jas 5:17).
By the lack of infallibility we may fall, and by grace and the work of repentance we rise, and we say to the Lord concerning our falls: “Forgive us.”
Whoever lifts himself above this petition is fought by self-righteousness.
Indeed, the prayers which the Church has placed for us in the Agpeya go into many details of this petition, for we ask for the forgiveness of our sins, our iniquities, and our transgressions… for the sins we committed willingly and those we committed unwillingly, those done knowingly and those done unknowingly, hidden and manifest… We also ask for the forgiveness of inadvertent faults and slips.
And in the Absolution of Midnight which the priest prays, he prays for the forgiveness of “all our evils, transgressions, mistakes, slips, and iniquities,” the sins “past and renewed, voluntary and involuntary, nightly and daily, visible and hidden,” the left-hand blow and the right-hand blow…
Even the sins we do not know, we also pray for their forgiveness…
And truly one of the saints said that God does not reveal to us all our sins at once, lest from the horror of their ugliness we fall into despair and hopelessness!
Rather, He reveals to us little by little so that we may offer repentance and contrition. And the more we grow in the Spirit, the more He reveals to us other sins which we did not know we had committed before reaching this growth…!
And the more we increase in knowledge of the spiritual path and deepen in it, deficiencies in our life are revealed to us, and we ask forgiveness for them… Perhaps even what we once boasted of—mistakenly—as virtues, appears before us as deficiencies in the new growth…
We ask the Lord for forgiveness for all sins, whether sins of action or thought or sense or tongue, or sins of the heart and intention…
We also ask forgiveness for what we may have forgotten during this prayer. And there are translations which say in this petition:
Forgive us what we owe, or what we are indebted with, “leave it for us,”
Because we are indeed indebted before God. And in the story of the woman who washed Christ’s feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head, the Lord said to Simon the Pharisee:
“A certain creditor had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both” (Lk 7:41).
And with the same meaning, the Lord Christ mentioned the parable of the indebted servant whose master forgave him because he had nothing to repay (Mt 18:27).
Each of us stands before God indebted, unable to pay his debts, for the wages of sin is death, and there is no payment except that ransom which was offered for us on the Cross…
Thus, in our saying “Forgive us,” we mean our request that these sins be blotted out by the precious blood, and that the Lord carry them on our behalf…
The petition of forgiveness should be said by the one who prays with all his heart.
For at the time of falling, or in the hours of repentance, a person may pray from his heart asking forgiveness of his sins.
But in times of spiritual consolation and grace, and in times of successful ministry and work for the kingdom… perhaps in all these he does not feel his sins nor remember them, because the present righteousness in which he lives makes him forget the errors he fell into…!
Therefore, lest he fall into self-righteousness and think of himself as something, the Lord placed for him this prayer so that he may remember that he is a sinner…
So sit and judge yourself…
Remember your sins so that you may ask for repentance for them. And remember that St. Paul the Apostle said, “I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God,” though that was in the past, when he was Saul of Tarsus… Yet his sin remained before him at all times, bringing him contrition and a sense of unworthiness, so he says, “formerly a blasphemer”… He did not forget it.
And David the Prophet also wept over his sins until he soaked his bed with his tears—all of this after he had received a promise of forgiveness—because before that he did not fully know what state he was in until Nathan alerted him…
How beautiful is the saying of St. Anthony the Great regarding the remembrance of sins:
If we remember our sins, God will forget them for us. And if we forget our sins, God will remember them for us…
How deep is that spiritual person who, no matter how much forgiveness and salvation he receives, never forgets that he is a sinner—not only concerning the past, but also concerning the present. For by this attitude the tax collector was justified rather than the Pharisee. The Pharisee never said in his prayer, “Forgive us.” But the tax collector said it in his contrite petition. And the Lord gave us this parable so that it may be a model for us in our spiritual life.
Blessed is he who feels that he is more sinful than others.
He always sees the beam in his own eye before he considers the speck in his brother’s eye… Therefore, the one who prays saying “Forgive us” cannot fall into judging others if he says this petition from the depth of his heart… He does not judge others, but asks for others the forgiveness he asks for himself. And likewise he does not ask vengeance on those who wrong him, but forgiveness…
The spiritual person feels that he is more sinful than others—at least because he who knows more is required of more… Perhaps another sinned through ignorance, but he sinned through knowledge. Perhaps another sinned through weakness, but he without excuse.
We notice here that the one who prays does not justify himself at all, but asks for forgiveness.
Our mother Eve did not say, “Forgive us,” nor did our father Adam say this petition; but each tried to find an excuse for himself or cast responsibility on the other. But the one who prays here does not justify himself. He fully acknowledges that he is at fault and that what he needs is not excuses but forgiveness. Therefore he asks for it without justifying himself or denying responsibility…
And we ask forgiveness for all sins, whether those we committed against God or against our fellow humans.
For sin is directed originally toward God.
And the Psalmist says in Psalm 50, “Against You only have I sinned and done evil in Your sight.” Every sin is rebellion against God, lack of love for Him, and a breaking of His commandment—even the commandment in which He asked us for the love of neighbor. So when we sin against humans, we have also sinned against God.
Therefore we ask Him for forgiveness, not only them.
And with this petition we remember an attribute of God, which is that He is forgiving.
If God were not forgiving, we would not ask Him for forgiveness…
We remember His promises in which He said, “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out,” and we remember His promise in the Book of Isaiah when He said, “Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow…” (Is 1:18).
Indeed, we are confident that when we ask for forgiveness, we shall become “whiter than snow” (Ps 50). And we remember the saying of David the Prophet about the Lord: “He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust” (Ps 103).
But how does the Lord forgive?
Here are conditions:
The first condition is: As we also forgive those who trespass against us.
And what else?
It seems necessity compels us to postpone this discussion to the next issue, if the Lord wills and we live.
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An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III published in Watani newspaper on 9-8-1981
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