a distance, an absence, an exile

O Paradise, garden of delight and beauty, dwelling place made perfect by God, unending gladness and eternal joy, the hope of the prophets and the home of the saints, by the music of your rustling leaves beseech the Creator of all to open to me the gates which my sins have closed, that I may partake of the Tree of Life and Grace which was given to me in the beginning (Vespers of Forgiveness Sunday)

 

There have been moments in our lives when we have felt or had a vision or sense of heaven: the presence of God, of grace, a certain wholeness and integrity, joy, peace, wonder, gratitude. The sweetness of being forgiven, and of forgiving, is a kind of paradise, a brief taste of heaven. We understand how desirable it is to be in a right relationship with God and one another, to shed all that is calculating and defensive and guilty and to savor a moment of relief, of honesty and openness , to have a clear conscience, to regain - even if briefly - an almost child-like innocence and purity.

 

In addition to today's theme of forgiveness, we also directed to reflect on the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise. The fall from grace of our first parents is said to be the origin of our own sense of exile and alienation, of the division and separation we experience in our relationships with God and one another. We have only at times a passing glimpse of the paradise for which we were created and which is our true spiritual home. Mutual forgiveness is one of these critical moments. Our lenten journey will be marked, God-willing, by several such moments when the veil is lifted and the distance that seperates us from paradise is diminished, moments of recognition and sweetness that point towards the true homeland our heart's desire. 

 

 Over against these experiences we daily endure our fallen condition, a condition of exile.  Charles Taylor writes in A Secular Age about our experience of 'a distance, an absence, an exile, a seemingly irremediable incapacity ever to reach this place; an absence of power, a confusion.... What is terrible in this latter condition is that we lose a sense of where the place of fullness is, even of what fullness could consist in, we feel we've forgotten what it would look like, or cannot believe in it anymore. But the misery of absence, of loss, is still there, indeed, it is in some ways even more acute.'

 

We highlight forgiveness as we are about to begin the lenten struggle to overcome this sense of absence and loss because without the desire for - and expression of - mutual forgiveness there can be be no return to paradise. In fact, without striving to forgive and asking for forgiveness from God and one another there can be no salvation. The Lord says that divine mercy will be shown only to the merciful and forgiveness only to the forgiving.