But at least that is a very provisional truth. Forgiveness is the deeper, more practical truth. Forgiveness is the refusal to let the past control the future. It cuts the nerve of revenge and insists on replacing it with sinews of hope. It looks forward to new community with those who have so dreadfully damaged community.
Forgiveness knits up the raveled bonds of the collective lives of sinners.
It is the great repairer of our fractured humanity. And from the great practitioners of that truth we Christians, in particular, must forever be learners. Such people are the hope of this violent human history. They offer us Christian comfort and confidence that the God and Father of Jesus really is at work in this world, enabling some, at least, to be the peacemakers that Jesus believed the Holy Spirit means to make of us all. Let us pray that God grants us to be numbered among the peacemakers.