{"id":30481,"date":"2014-03-04T20:01:46","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T00:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/?p=30481"},"modified":"2014-03-04T18:17:30","modified_gmt":"2014-03-04T22:17:30","slug":"growing-in-freedom-through-forgiveness-beginning-in-lent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2014\/03\/growing-in-freedom-through-forgiveness-beginning-in-lent\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing in Freedom through forgiveness beginning in Lent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/forgiveness.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-30482 alignleft\" alt=\"forgiveness\" src=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/forgiveness-300x206.gif\" width=\"300\" height=\"206\" \/><\/a>The Christian approach is to \u201cgive something up\u201d for Lent as a way change one\u2019s sinfulness to a life of holiness. At least that\u2019s the hope. Typically we fail pretty early in our lenten practices because the sting of the sacrifice is not really present in the way we live and we don\u2019t see the point. Our walk with Jesus Christ has to be more than a Cadbury Easter Egg. What are you are you giving up for Lent? And, why? What is driving you to give up thus-and-such for Lent? Can mercy be a real way of living for you?<\/p>\n<p>In what ways would your life be different if you made an offering to God that included giving up several unseemly attitudes that if you were serious your life would be fundamentally happier?<\/p>\n<p>Forgiveness is God\u2019s gift to us. Will we receive this gift and share it with others? Forgiveness means everything\u2026it is the method of living the proclamation of the Gospel. Forgiveness always a new day to us to live in freedom and it takes us out of the ghetto called <em>religion<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a proposal of letting go:<\/p>\n<p>Arrogance, intellectual and affective<br \/>\nBlame, bitterness and resentment<br \/>\nDoubt in faith, hope and love<br \/>\nEnvy and excuses<br \/>\nFear of failure, lack of courage<br \/>\nFeelings of unworthiness and guilt<br \/>\nGossip and negativity<br \/>\nImpatience with self and others<br \/>\nLack of counsel<br \/>\nPreferring other things to Christ<br \/>\nPresumption, pride and worry:\u00a0thinking that God is on my side at all times for all reasons<br \/>\nRefusing the hand offered in friendship<br \/>\nRefusing to honor the other person<br \/>\nRefusing to have mercy on others<br \/>\nSelf-pity<br \/>\nSense of entitlement and a spirit of consumerism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Christian approach is to \u201cgive something up\u201d for Lent as a way change one\u2019s sinfulness to a life of holiness. At least that\u2019s the hope. Typically we fail pretty early in our lenten practices because the sting of the sacrifice is not really present in the way we live and we don\u2019t see the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2014\/03\/growing-in-freedom-through-forgiveness-beginning-in-lent\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Growing in Freedom through forgiveness beginning in Lent<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[2178,1953,2008],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30481"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30483,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30481\/revisions\/30483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}