A Prayer in a Time of Anger and Separation
Lord, you who expressed your divine anger in fire, brimstone, and lightning, look down with understanding upon my anger. I am in pain — a wound in my heart caused by another is the source of this suffering. That heart of mine, Lord of Hearts, is filled with anger so that I am unable to be loving and caring. I feel a need to return injury for injury, pain for pain, and so cannot truly desire to forgive the other.
Lord, you and I both know that such an attitude is wrong, yet it is very real and its pain overflows into the rest of my life. Before I can come to the point of wanting to forgive — and to be forgiven if that is necessary — I must find an antidote for the poison of this attitude.
Lord, I need your help, for my feelings are confused, and I so need to find some order among them. I need to see how this separation has come about and how I can take some steps toward mending my broken communication. I pause now to exchange places and to look at the cause of the separation through the eyes of the other who has injured me.
(pause for silent reflection)
Lord, you who are a God of compassion as well as holy anger, may I see how that which angers me in the other is also a part of my person which I repel. Help me to own that part of me and thus begin to know my oneness with the other. May this pass-over of mine to the other’s side make me ready for a solution to this division, and may my desire for communion soak up the poison in my heart. Lead me, Forgiving Lord, to the graces of reconciliation so that this relationship which is dead may be resurrected to a fuller life through your holy and healing power.
Amen.
Preface Prayer to Reconciliation with Another
Prayer for Granting Forgiveness to Myself
My God, you who perpetually pardon all who are sincere in their sorrow, help me as I seek to forgive myself. I realize, my Lord, that unless I can forgive myself I cannot fully forgive those who have offended me. Humble my heart so that I can embrace all that is hidden within me.
You, Lord of Creation, have divided time into day and night. My life is likewise divided between light and darkness, good and bad. When these dark, negative needs are excessive and out of balance with the positive, they become destructive to others, and to myself as well.
I forgive myself for becoming impatient because I was too busy, too particular or in a hurry. I forgive myself for this failing as I forgive others who are impatient, too. I forgive myself for making mistakes, for being too quick to act or to speak, for not taking time to think. I forgive myself as well as others who make their own mistakes. I forgive myself for being stupid in sinning, for falling into the same errors that injure others and myself. I forgive myself for those small sins that irritate others and cause me shame. For a smallness of mind in my thoughts, for a narrowness of heart in my actions, I forgive myself and forgive others who act and think as I do.
Compassionate Lord, I know how I sin most easily. Help me to understand and to correct this failing.
(pause for silent reflection)
I grant myself pardon and forgiveness so that my darkness may fuel the goodness within me, a goodness that you, my God, have placed in great deposit within me.
Amen.
A Prayer for One About to Approach Another for Pardon
Come, Lord of Healing and Unity, I am in need of your divine assistance. I need to approach another and to find a way to peace and understanding. We are now separated, and the canyon between us is painful and empty of you. Help me to be honest as I seek reunion. Open to my vision the ways by which I have failed and have been lacking in consideration. Let my heart be ready to see how I have sinned. I will need your help so that I may move beyond my own feelings to an awareness of the other who is also suffering.
You, Searcher of Hearts, know how both of us in our own ways are at fault. Teach us to be humble as we seek reunion. Come and stand between us so that all we say and do will be filled with the sacred medicine of heaven. Remind us how short our lives are so that we will not delay this reunion of hearts. Inspire us to see how this separation can serve to bring us even closer together, closer than we were before it happened. Most of all, Lord of Compassion, let me be a servant of pardon, a minister of reconciliation, as I now pray for your holy guidance.
(pause for silent reflection)
Lord, Divine Parent, make me as humble and healing as our mother the Earth. Make me as honest and defenseless as a child. Make me a compassionate and loving as your son, Jesus. And, Lord and Giver of True Strength, make me as forgiving as you, yourself, are.
Amen.
Liturgy of Reconciliation
Lord God, Just Judge and Compassionate Holy Parent, be here with us as we seek to be re-united in reconciliation after a time of separation. We pause now to be aware of your sacred presence among us.
(pause for silent reflection)
We come together in your holy presence as we seek to forget the past and its mistakes and to be once again united in love. We remember the story told by your son and our lord, Jesus, about the son who had left home and sinned, and yet his father was eager and anxious to embrace him and to celebrate his return. Mindful of the deep meanings in that beautiful story, we too are anxious that old scars be healed and that rejoicing once again fill our lives. We forgive one another for any way in which we have caused pain to one another or may have torn apart the fabric of our unity by this injury.
Lord, you truly know that we all make mistakes and have failed. Look upon us who have been offended and lift our hearts. Look upon us who have given offense and help us heal the hurt of our actions and words.
As we willingly forgive one another, forgive us our sins as well and fill us with your healing power and grace.
Lord, we lack a fattened calf with which to celebrate, but may the spirit of feasting and dancing fill our hearts now made new by your healing grace of forgiveness. As we embrace each other, may we be enveloped by you, our Lord and God, and united in peace and in love.
Amen.
(Edward Hays)