Jesus taught Christians to forgive, but it is not easy to do.

On the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” He also told us many parables about forgiveness, especially the one about the servant who was forgiven a debt and then refused to forgive his debtor. In the Lord’s Prayer, he also has us pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Forgiveness is an essential part of Christ’s message. I wish it were easy, but it is not. Since I have some Irish blood, I can repeat the joke about Irish Alzheimer’s, where the person forgets everything but his or her grudges, but any ethic group can be inserted in this joke.

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