And forgive us our debts...

Deus, in adjutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adjuvandum meum festina.
O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.

Back to some Lenten thoughts.

Our Church Bulletin for 4th Sunday of Lent had, as usual, a "Reflection" from one of the Church Fathers.  This one was from St. Leo the Great, Pope, Confessor and Doctor of the Church.  Pope Leo I was the one who met and turned back Attila, the "Scourge of God" and the Huns at the gates of Rome, stopping the conquest in its tracks. He also fought two major heresies of the time. He opposed Entyches, who denied the two natures of Christ, and the Nestorians who said that there were two persons in Jesus. He died in 461 A.D.  The reflection is on forgiveness, something we all proabably need to think about, and what better time than the penitential season of Lent. 

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   "Let us take refuge in the ever present mercy of God, and, so that we may with becoming reverence celebrate the holy Pasch of the Lord, let all of the faithful seek to make holy their own hearts. Let harshness give way to mildness, let wrath grow gentle, forgive one another your offences, and let him who seeks to be forgiven be not himself a seeker of vengeance. For when we say: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt. 6:12), we bind ourselves in the most enduring bonds unless we fulfill what we profess.
And if the most sacred contract of this prayer has not in every respect been fulfilled, let every man now at least examine his conscience, and gain the pardon of his own sins by forgiving those of others.

   "For when the Lord says: If you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences (Matt. 6:14; 18:35, Lk. 6:37), what He is here asking is close to each one of us: for the sentence of the Judge will depend on the clemency of the suppliant. For the Just and Merciful Receiver of the prayers of men has laid it down, that our own generosity is the measure of His fairness to ourselves; so that He will not treat with strict justness those whom He finds not eager for revenge. And generosity is becoming to kind and gentle souls. Nothing is more fitting than that a man imitate his Maker, and that as best he can he be a doer of the works of God. For when the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, the sick assisted, are not the hands that minister but completing the help God gives, and is not the generosity of the giver also a gift of God?"

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                                Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.
                                Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
                                Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts
                                as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation,
                                but deliver us from evil. Amen