Tag: forgive

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Julianne Nornberg

Focusing on forgiveness this Lent

“Say ‘I’m sorry,’” I remember telling my children when they were toddlers squabbling over toys.

“I’m sorry,” parroted the perpetrator, who sometimes had to repeat it a few times before exhibiting the requisite tone of remorse.

“Now say ‘I forgive you,’” I would tell the victim, who also parroted the phrase without completely understanding its meaning.

For years we have done this in our household, trying to explain to the children the importance of forgiveness. And yet, I myself was an adult before I understood its full meaning.

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Kevin Wondrash

St. Dennis welcomes ‘trailblazer of forgiveness’ for fall mission

MADISON — On Sunday, Nov. 5, St. Dennis Parish will welcome Dr. Robert Enright to present the parish’s fall mission: “The Church as a Forgiving Community.”

As the founder of the International Forgiveness Institute here in Madison, Dr. Enright has been referred to as the “trailblazer of forgiveness” by Time Magazine.

An educational psychologist by training, he has built a 30-year academic career committed to researching and implementing forgiveness programs and curricula.

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Fr. Gregory Ihm

The power of forgiving sins

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Fr. Gregory Ihm

In 1793 began the Reign of Terror in France known as the French Revolution when many priests, Religious, and Catholic lay faithful were murdered because of their association with the Church.

One man had a particular hatred for priests and was famous for his style of execution: slitting their throats. Several years after the Reign of Terror, this man grew old, sick, and weaker.

His wife, a hidden Catholic, called in a priest she knew to anoint her husband because she feared for his soul.

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Anonymous Sufferer in Training

I want to see Him suffer

Stop me if you’ve heard this one already. On one unfortunate day, the art teacher, the science teacher, and the development director of a prestigious Catholic high school all died and found themselves standing before the gates of heaven in front of a less than pleased St. Peter.

The frowning apostle said to them, “It is no secret up here that the three of you never got along on earth and constantly quarreled amongst yourselves. So, in order to get into heaven, you must complete one final test. You must all agree which moment in the life of Christ you would like to see first-hand, and it will be granted to you.”

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Sr. M. Marcia Vinje

Reflections on 9/11 and life in NYC

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Editor’s note: Sr. M. Marcia Vinje, a Schoenstatt Sister of Mary, recently moved from Madison to work at Our Lady of Pity Parish in Staten Island, N.Y. Following are her reflections on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and other experiences.

The 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, are very much in the awareness of everyone in New York.

Everyone has a story about who they knew that died that day, or why their relative should have been at the World Trade Center but for various reasons they were not there that day or came later. The stories of God’s providence are phenomenal.

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Fr. Donald Lange

Reconciliation shows us God’s boundless mercy

A college student wrote in her college newspaper that sometimes she wished that she were a Catholic. Then, like her Catholic friends, she could confess her sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Through the absolution of the priest, she would be assured of God’s forgiveness.

God’s merciful forgiveness is expressed in the words of absolution: “God, the Father of mercies, through the death and the resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to Himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

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