{"id":6062,"date":"2022-03-06T07:55:40","date_gmt":"2022-03-06T12:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/?p=6062"},"modified":"2022-03-06T07:56:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-06T12:56:51","slug":"picking-up-the-pieces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/en\/picking-up-the-pieces\/","title":{"rendered":"Picking Up the Pieces"},"content":{"rendered":"Going to confession and asking for God\u2019s forgiveness is not always enough, especially when we hurt\r\nor offend someone. We must go to that person and express our apology and our regret if we are\r\ntruly sorry for what we have done.<!- wp:more --><!--more--> It is not enough either to ask for forgiveness. The person who\r\nhas caused the hurt and is truly sorry must be humble enough to express her\/his repentance without\r\nasking for forgiveness. Forgiveness is a gift that is freely granted by the person that has been hurt.\r\nRepentance is what we offer and forgiveness is what we are freely given.\r\nThis is what a Christian does when she\/he has hurt or offended another person. We need to return\r\nto the person and express our repentance. What is granted to us from this action is something that\r\nis out of our control and oftentimes, it is the result of our actions. For this, we must also take\r\nresponsibility without demanding anything.\r\nThis may be hard to accept. But, think about it, why would I express my contrition to a person I\r\nhaven\u2019t offended, when it is my responsibility to express it to the person that I did offend? Why\r\nwould I do that if I don\u2019t do it with the intention of being strengthened to go and ultimately do what I\r\ntruly need to do? Just to get it out of my system? So that I can feel better?\r\nIf we are truly sorry and we want to \u201cpick up the pieces,\u201d we need to do what is right although it may\r\nbe difficult. And, this is where we need to bring God in to the situation, express my regret and my\r\nrepentance to God with the desire for the grace of humility to go and say \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d to the one who\r\nneeds to or should hear it from me.\r\nSo, \u2018if on my way to confession or to Mass, I remember that someone may be hurt or offended\r\nbecause of me, I need to turn back, try to reconcile myself with the person I have offended, and then\r\ngo and seek the forgiveness of God, if my contrition truly comes from a repentant heart.\u2019 The secret\r\nblessing in all of this, no matter how humbling and difficult it is for us, is that the practice of such\r\nsincere humility helps us to forgive ourselves too, which oftentimes, is even harder to do.\r\nSisters and brothers, as we travel this road of Lent, let us say to the Lord as those disciples said to\r\nhim on the road to Emmaus: \u201cStay with us, Lord.\u201d Yes! Stay with us and give us always the\r\nintegrity, the strength and the humility to \u201cpick up the pieces.\u201d\r\nYou are in my prayers and in my heart.\r\nPeace\r\nFriar Julio<!-- \/wp:post-content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Going to confession and asking for God\u2019s forgiveness is not always enough, especially when we hurt or offend someone. We must go to that person and express our apology and our regret&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-heart"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6062"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6064,"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6062\/revisions\/6064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stjuliasilercity.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}