On the previous Sunday man took a stance in existence before God, by bearing the responsibility of becoming a man, that is, mature — for children do not bear responsibility. This stance calls today for man to make it an act, that is, a work in the society in which he lives, so that he first forgives himself and reconciles with himself before he forgives others. The obstacle that stands between ourselves and the love of others is our lack of love for ourselves. When Jesus said the first commandment “love your neighbor as yourself,” He was saying: love your neighbor as you love yourself. If man hates himself, he cannot love and does not know how to love. Therefore on this Sunday we are called to forgive ourselves, lest our sins remain an obstacle between us and our progress toward God.
Then today we must confess and cast the past into the forgetting of God, all the sins he committed, to begin anew, and to forgive everyone who wronged him, to forgive every neighbor. Here man asks himself: do I possess the love that drives us to this act? We do not need love in order to forgive; we need forgiveness in order to possess love. Forgiveness is necessary for us to forget the past.
Is forgiveness difficult? No doubt. But the woman who thinks about the difficulty of childbirth does not give birth. Therefore, when a woman wants a child, she does not think about the pain but thinks about him. We today are still at the beginning of the road, and it is natural that man does not possess sufficient strength for this act or possess gratuitous love. It is enough that we possess the decision. And also from another angle, the forgiveness that man offers today is not gratuitous forgiveness; rather there is a return and a price he receives: it is the forgiveness of the Father. We must forgive in order to obtain forgiveness, “for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” (Matt. 6:14).
The word forgiveness in Greek means “to let go of.” And precisely on the last Sunday, in the preparation before the journey of love with Jesus, man lets go of the burdens that weary him, for the journey is long to Pascha and then to the Father. My forgetting the sins of the neighbor is a necessity, not for the other and not for God, but for myself. The man who has not forgiven is still stuck in his past, shackled by its old events; what happened to me in the past will remain a point of reference to which I return and upon which I build the events of the future, and resentment forms, keeping me stuck in the mire of sins. Whoever wants to soar in the heaven of God must let go.
And it is necessary that our memory become clean, because it is about to begin recording new experiences with Jesus.
Why is today a commemoration? Because this Sunday is the commemoration of the expulsion of Adam from Paradise. What is the reason for placing it today? The reason is clarified by the reason for Adam’s expulsion: not the disobedience, but Adam and Eve’s lack of forgiveness that God was waiting for. Adam said: the one You gave me, she is responsible. Had Adam forgiven, he would have recovered himself from the first moment and would not have gone out. What took Adam out of Paradise brings us into it: forgive, and you will be transfigured.
Today is the last station in the first phase, the phase of preparation (preparing the self), which revolves around man’s self and its preparation. Thereby we complete the following: knowing ourselves, evaluating ourselves according to God, then making a decision, taking a stance by holding ourselves to account, then embodying the decision through forgiveness, then preparing to meet Jesus on the first Sunday of Lent, where we shall hear the words of the apostles “Come and see.” (John 1:46).