A Large-hearted attitude of Forgiveness to those who have done us wrong is advocated in all the scriptures. Forgiveness is at the heart of Jesus’ message; indeed, according to The Lord’s Prayer, it is incumbent upon the Christian to forgive.
God is most forgiving. It states in the Qur’an that people who seek to draw near to God should likewise be full of forgiveness. Forgiving is natural to a parent; therefore, if we can take a parental heart towards others, akin to the heart of God our Father, we can forgive them. While it may be difficult to forgive people who do us grave injustice or injury, it is far preferable to holding a grudge, which would only fester and poison the spirit. Yet how can we forgive?
Forgiveness is not a natural thing. It will not do to forget a wrong simply or sweep it under the rug. Such easy or ritualistic forgiveness is phony and can mask deeper feelings of lasting resentment.
As theologian Paul Tillich wrote, “Forgiving presupposes remembering. And it creates a forgetting not in the natural way we forget yesterday’s weather, but in the way of the great ‘despite’ that says: I forget, although I remember.”
Father Moon teaches that we need to find a positive reason to forgive, a reason to make a new beginning in relating to that person in spite of the painful memory of previous wrongs.
Thus he explores the reasons why God forgives us, and searches for that point of weakness and pathos in the wrongdoer that can evoke the heart of compassion.
Sun Myung Moon
Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors. Better and more rewarding is God’s reward to those who believe… and when angry, even then forgive… Matthew 6.11-12
If you efface and overlook and forgive, then lo! God is forgiving, and merciful.
Qur’an 64.14
Allah is All-Forgiving and loves the one who forgives others.
Algama’ Alsaghair 2.1749 (Islam)
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Matthew 6.14-15
Better and more rewarding is God’s reward to those who believe… and when angry, even then forgive…
Let evil be rewarded by like evil, but he who forgives and seeks reconciliation shall be rewarded by God. He does not love the wrongdoers… True constancy lies in forgiveness and patient forbearance. Qur’an 42.36-37, 40, 43
Take heed to yourselves; if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him; and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, and says, “I repent,” you must forgive him. Luke 17.3-4
The best deed of a great man is to forgive and forget. Nahjul Balagha, Saying 201 (Shiite Islam)
The truly great man must forgive people without being forgiven by them. Chu Hsi (Confucianism)
Release: The superior man tends to forgive wrongs and deals leniently with crimes. I Ching 40 (Confucianism)
Moses son of Imran said, “My Lord, who is the greatest of Thy servants in Thy estimation?” and received the reply, “The one who forgives when he is in a position of power.”20 Hadith of Baihaqi (Islam)
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?”
This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
But when they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus looked up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again.” John 8.3-11
Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles; lest the Lord see it, and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him. Proverbs 24.17-18
Who takes vengeance or bears a grudge acts like one who, having cut one hand while handling a knife, avenges himself by stabbing the other hand. Jerusalem Talmud, Nedarim 9.4 (Judaism)
Subvert anger by forgiveness. Samanasuttam 136 (Jainism)
Kuan Chung… could seize the fief of P’ien with its three hundred villages from its owner, the head of the Po family; yet Po, though he lived on coarse food to the end of his days, never uttered a single word of resentment. The Master said, “To be poor and not resent it is far harder than to be rich yet not presumptuous.” Analects 14.11 (Confucianism)
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” Matthew 18.21-22
Doing an injury puts you below your enemy; Revenging one makes you but even with him; Forgiving it sets you above him. Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack
Where there is forgiveness, there is God Himself. Adi Granth, Shalok Kabir, p. 1372 (Sikhism)
Sun Myung Moon
Teachings of Sun Myung Moon
Great forgiveness is possible when you have understood the other person’s situation one hundred percent. Because God knows our situations, He forgives us. (2:220, May 26, 1957)
Joseph forgave his brothers, although they were his enemies who had sold him into slavery. Yet, Joseph forgave them for his father’s sake because they were all his father’s sons.
Put yourself in Joseph’s position. Like Joseph, we have many enemies, yet we have no choice but to forgive them because they are all the children of our Father, God. We forgive them for God’s sake because we believe in God. (146:125, June 8, 1986)
Among the countless people I have been leading, many have committed transgressions. I deal with them with the attitude, “I will forgive you one hundred times.” This is the fatherly heart. Suppose your own son was arrested as a robber and a murderer and was facing execution.
Would you as a parent say, as you watched your son walking toward the execution chamber, “It is a good thing that you are about to die. You should be killed quickly”? No, you would look for every possible way to win him a pardon. That is the heart of a parent. You would forgive him, even a thousand or ten thousand times. (157:259-60, April 10, 1967)
You leaders who live with your members, if one of your members is wrong, do not tell him he is wrong to his face, but look for how you can forgive him. Look at his wife; is she worse than her husband?
Look at his children; are they worse than their father? Then look at his mother and father; are they worse than their child? No, among his family some are good people. Thus thinking of his family’s good qualities and their love for him, you can find a way to love him.
Then the blessings gathered in that family will be joined with you. If you live this way, you will not perish. Heaven will protect you. (308:208, January 5, 1999)
God does not strike someone who is defeated. Rather, God shows mercy to those who recognize their sin and repent. God exists; therefore anyone who raises a sword to strike a defeated person will bring ruin on his descendants. Instead, we should pray for him and give him guidance with the heart of a close friend. (25:333, October 12, 1969)
Among the Christian martyrs who were thrown to the lions in the coliseums of Rome, there were two kinds of people. One kind prayed, “God, take revenge upon my persecutors. Punish them! May they all perish!”
Their mind was to resist the unjust Caesar up to the moment of death. The other kind prayed, “Forgive their sins! Forgive the Caesar! May Rome one day become God’s nation on this earth!”
Compare the destinies of these two kinds of martyrs. Those who prayed for their enemies, for Rome and Caesar, are dwelling in an exalted realm among those who are victorious over Satan.
But those who died with the self-centered desire to receive salvation and held a grudge against Rome are dwelling somewhere below the realm of Rome. (130:233, January 29, 1984)
When Jesus taught us to love our enemies, do you think he meant that we should forgive Satan? You should be clear about this question. When someone asked him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.”
If Jesus, the Son of God, could forgive people to that extent, should he not also forgive Satan? Yet he cannot do that; it is impossible. When Jesus prayed for his enemies, the object of his prayers was not Satan but rather the people whom Satan invaded.
Evil people are merely victims of God’s enemy; therefore he forgave them and sought for them, as God was seeking for them. Yet, this does not mean that he should forgive Satan. (92:187, April 10, 1977)
O Source of all goodness! I earnestly pray that Thou wilt forgive through Thine infinite love and magnanimity the many religious believers of this nation for their past acts of persecution against the children of the Unification movement.
[Because of their actions,] some who joined the movement for a time grew tired and lonely and fell away, unable to endure the persecution, unable to find even one person to console them on the lonely path.
And I know that many who remain on the path are exhausted. Thinking of how they ought to be bowing their heads and begging Thy forgiveness, my indignation against them is hard to bear, and I long to resolve the grudges in Thy heart.
Still, thinking about Thy merciful path of restoration, as Thou seekest to recover the children of the enemy, I know that Thou canst not help but bless them again— and therefore I pray that Thou wilt forgive them.
Father, I earnestly ask Thee to please forgive and once again extend Thy grace to the pitiable churches that betrayed Thee. (27:301-02, December 28, 1969)
Sun Myung Moon