13/09/2026
Lord Jesus,
You know how difficult forgiveness can be.
Sometimes the hurt is deep.
Sometimes I can still remember the words,
the rejection, the betrayal,
the things that should never have happened.
And yet today You say to me,
“Do not count the times.
Forgive from the heart.”
Lord, I cannot always do this by myself.
So I bring You the places in my heart
where I am still hurt, angry, afraid or resentful.
I do not want to pretend that what happened did not matter.
I do not want to excuse what was wrong.
I do not want to force myself to feel something
that I do not yet feel.
But I do want to become free.
So, Jesus, I give You my need for justice.
I give You my need to understand.
I give You the things I cannot change.
I give You the people who have hurt me.
You know.
You saw.
You were there.
Where I cannot yet say, “I forgive,”
help me to say,
“Jesus, I want to want to forgive.”
Where forgiveness feels impossible,
let Your mercy begin the work in me.
Teach me to remember
how patiently You have forgiven me,
how many times You have welcomed me back,
how Your mercy is greater than my failures.
And Lord, teach me also to forgive myself.
When I keep a ledger of another person's wrongs,
help me to put the ledger down.
When I keep a ledger of my own failures,
help me to put that down too.
Let Your mercy be greater
than my remembering.
Give me wisdom to forgive
without abandoning healthy boundaries.
Help me understand that forgiveness
does not mean returning to what was unsafe.
It means placing the person, the wound,
and the need for justice into Your hands.
Jesus, make my heart like Yours.
Not hard.
Not bitter.
Not imprisoned by the past.
But tender, truthful and free.
And when I cannot forgive seventy-seven times,
give me grace for the next time.
Then the next.
And the next.
Until, little by little,
Your mercy has done in me
what I could never do alone.
Sacred Heart of Jesus,
make my heart like Yours.
Mary, Mother of Mercy,
pray for me.
Amen.
