The book of Sirach perhaps already gives us some clues… (end of chapter 27) Yes, our intelligence can undoubtedly understand more or less quickly, more or less deeply… Yes, our will can accept/want more or less quickly, more or less courageously… The fact remains that “ want and understand » are not enough: it is the situation of the personal subject that is in question… isn’t it? Do we not wait, when we go before God , for Him to give us HIS forgiveness? And we would be AND disappointed AND very embarrassed if God did not give it to us! And yet we know deep down that we do not deserve it, especially given the disproportion between the Love of God… and our so pitifully proud whims! But perhaps it is only in this face-to-face encounter with God that we can consider forgiveness towards our brother? We are hardly better than him, and we quibble over explanations, justifications, even compensations or reparations! We who are worth so little before God and yet… HE forgives us!

Let us draw conclusions: If we have so much difficulty in forgiving , is it not (perhaps) because we are so little before God, in His presence ? Let’s take a step forward: The more you forgive, the more you are in the presence of God, and the more you act ‘in God’. It is only there that forgiveness is livable: suspended on the LIFE of God in us, our only value »… and the ‘brother’ then truly becomes a ‘brother’!