Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. (Matthew 6:12)

This petition of the Our Father is different from all the other ones. It is not only a prayer to God, but also mentions what we do: “as we have forgiven” or “as we forgive.” The first variant is preferred by bible scholars, the second by common practice.

Whoever prays in this way “presents themselves before God as an example of virtue, if we are allowed to put it that way, by calling upon God, who is beyond any imitation, to come and imitate them,” as Saint Maximus Confessor, a commentator of the seventh century, remarked, not without astonishment.

But who can assert that they have gone to the extreme of forgiving in order to ask God to do the same? Elsewhere, the Bible maintains the priority of forgiveness received over forgiveness given: “The Lord has forgiven you; do the same in your turn” (Colossians 3:13). The immense love with which God fills us can overflow into the lives of others through the forgiveness we offer in our turn.

Why then does the Our Father invert the order: first us, then God? The words must be taken literally: “to forgive debts” means to become poor. If forgiveness means wiping out debts, then it is first of all a loss.

In the Letter to the Colossians, forgiveness is expressed by a word which designates an undeserved and overflowing gift: “The Lord has shown grace to you.” The word Jesus generally uses for forgiveness is poor and banal. It means “to let,” as in “let that alone” or “let it go.”

In praying “forgive us our debts,” we ask God to “let go” of the debts that burden us, and so to “let us go” free ourselves. Like poor people, we ask God not to demand anything of us since in fact we have nothing to give to him.

It is not in our power to free our past from the evil we have undergone. In that too we are poor: we cannot readily cease to feel again and again the sometimes violent pain of the evil that was done to us.

Saying to God “as we have forgiven our debtors” does not mean saying proudly to him: “You see how generously I have forgiven.” It only means coming to God as poor men and women who no longer wish to demand what is due to them.

For there are times when we secretly keep score of the wrongs done to us, so that, when the time comes, we can present a kind of bill for damages, with interest. Even when it seems to reassure us, this kind of score-keeping paralyzes us. To enter into the freedom of forgiveness, we have to leave behind what only makes us sad.

 What makes forgiveness hard for me?

 Are there things I cannot simply let go of? What then can I do?

 Am I ready to become poor to find the liberty and the joy of pardon?