The Denial of St. Peter, Caravaggio

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 (RSVCE)

And what if the person who needs forgiveness is yourself?

I’m doing it again: thinking and acting out of anxiety, with all its annoying, tear-inducing subsequent behaviors. The context does not matter. What does is that, for a few days, I lost track of my Advent resolution to follow my own advice and widen my scope:

Push back. Open your eyes. Reach out. Look to God. Look to your neighbor. Ground yourself in natural and supernatural reality. See those fearsome phantoms in your head for what they are: mere shadows.

For my Scripture for the Scrupulous subscribers: does it help to know that the struggle is ongoing? That we can make progress, but perfection belongs to the Lord? God has His ways of keeping me humble, and this is one.

Repent. Turn to God. Recall His love.

Examine my conscience. Ask forgiveness. Make amends.

Focus on my family and my work.

Seventy times seven.

“Lord, who will save me from this body of death?”

Jesus, I trust in Thee.

Mary, Lady, Queen, and Mother, I trust in your prayers and the prayers of all the saints.

Guardian Angel, fight for me.

I would like to be able to strongly reprimand you for having so little confidence in our Lord. You should not fear Him, this greatly offends Him Who is so good, so sweet, so kind and so full of tenderness and mercy toward us. You may stand before Him in complete embarrassment because of your poverty and abjectness, but this embarrassment should be that of the prodigal son, after his return—confident and full of tenderness. This is the way you should appear before Jesus, our good Father and Lord. You are still in fear of not loving Him. It is more likely, in these moments, my dearest, that you love Him the most and that He is closer to you than ever. Don’t measure your love of our Lord by the depth of your feelings; this is truly a small measure. Abandon yourself into His hands with confidence; your love will increase more and more, but you will not notice it, and that does not matter.

Ven. François-Marie-Jacob Libermann, quoted in Searching for and Maintaining Peace by Fr. Jacques Philippe

People in the world do not realize that one can be very detached from all human things and live a keen spiritual life, and yet find sweetness in the interests, occupations, and joys of life. However, it is only when one has rooted oneself in eternity that one can let one’s humble little barque float upon the surface of the waves and rejoice full in the view from earthly rivers. Storms no longer frighten one; the clear sky makes one more bold. The sun is always shining behind the clouds; the light, for all its beauty, does not conceal the eternal and splendid light that guides us to port and waits for us there.

Élisabeth Leseur, from The Secret Diary of Elisabeth Leseur, pg. 102