A few days after celebrating Christmas and as we enter the first weeks of the new Liturgical Year, we invite the readers of Digital Catholic Missionaries to read and meditate on a handful of verses from the Holy Scriptures.
What strikes me about the quote from the prophet Jeremiah is that it says that God will no longer remember our sin. How different we are from God! But far from tormenting ourselves with this weakness; with this tendency to remember every detail of even the slightest offense that has been done to us, we should be encouraged to follow the example set for us by God. For, as Isaiah says, if I do not relive the past when I see that relative or friend on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, it is very likely that this moment will be genuinely peaceful, and that Baby Jesus will truly be born in me. Furthermore, when this God child becomes a man, He will take all our faults upon himself, for love of me and my brothers and sisters. God tells us that we can forgive others and that we can ask for forgiveness, and with the birth of Jesus, He also shows us that He goes out to meet our brothers and sisters; He will bring about this space for forgiveness and reconciliation. Otherwise, it would be difficult to fully live the wonder of God made man, in a manger, in the small town of Bethlehem.
No longer will they have need to teach their friends and kinsmen how to know the LORD. All, from least to greatest, shall know me, says the LORD, for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.
Jeremiah 31,34
Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not
Isaiah 43,18
thus is my bitterness transformed into peace. You have preserved my life from the pit of destruction, When you cast behind your back all my sins.
Isaiah 38,17
Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Matthew 5, 23-24
And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation-
2 Corinthians 5,18.
bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.
Colossians 3,13.
