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Week Four – Day Two : Forgiveness

I am often painfully aware of how difficult I can be to live with. I think it is really true in my case, I’m my own worst enemy and that can come out in all kinds of ways. One of the reasons I am here, and one of the reasons that I continue to remain here, is because this is one of the few places in my life that has both been able to, in a sense, contain me but also allow me to be myself, and to know that when I make mistakes, and I make many mistakes in the course of the day, I can almost inevitably call in expectation that my brothers will forgive me. That has been my experience over and over again. And I am not talking about a kind of cheap love either, because one of the hard lessons I’ve learned here is that there are consequences to behaviors and part of their forgiveness is knowing that and acknowledging that.

– Br. Robert L’Esperance

Today’s Question to Journal

Who has loved you well, and how did that love make you feel?

This Week’s Workbook Exercise – My Web of Connections

Use the exercise to reflect on your relationships with the people who surround your life. Where are relationships strong and blooming? Where could some ‘fertilizer’ create better ones? Where are relationships weakest?

We are all connected, directly and indirectly, through God’s Creation. What should you include in your Rule of Life to improve your relationship with others?

Use different types or colours of lines (for example: straight for strong & happy / double for very happy / dotted for weak / wavy for tense / broken for broken) to characterise the relationship between you and others. For example your spouse, family, friends, co-workers, difficult people, those in need. Then on each connecting line write your hopes for the relationship.

This Week’s Podcast Episode 

Our Relationship With Others
– Br. David Vryhof

Monastic Retreats

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