Kelsi Vanada

Dear friends,

I have been pleasantly surprised all over again at the emphasis on forgiveness in our liturgy during the Lenten season.

I suppose I say this because I come from a faith tradition that—while it preached forgiveness—also put a lot of stipulations on moral correctness, such that shame came easily and it was impossible to ever feel “right with God.”

In the churches of my youth, we took communion once a month (yes, we used “take” rather than “receive”—a big difference, to my mind). Each person was to go up individually to the front of the church (no altar) once they’d prepared their heart by repenting privately of their sins.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with preparing our hearts before communion, and in fact our tradition also encourages it (see the Prayer of Humble Access on page 337 of the Book of Common Prayer, or the Prayer Before Receiving Communion on page 834).

But for me, the pressure to appear sufficiently pious and repentant was all I could think about in that setting. (Had I prayed long enough? Was I forgetting a sin?) For me, the focus was definitely not on God’s forgiveness and mercy.

Today’s Psalm, 103: 1-4 & 13-18, calls on us to bless the Lord “who forgives all your iniquity.” A beautiful reminder that our God is fundamentally forgiving!

The Psalmist goes on to say, “For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.” Meaning that God knows we’re human, and that we deserve divine compassion. God desires to bring us back into right relationship with Godself.

Human forgiveness can be complicated, as we know. But thanks be to God that God’s forgiveness toward us doesn’t seem to be. We can go together to the altar: repentant, but also joyful, being assured in advance of this forgiveness.

Peace,

—Kelsi