A New Novena Prayer

“God, please bless and make whole every person whom I have injured. Grant me Your forgiveness, and theirs.”

came into my mind while saying a Novena. When I thought about how many people I had hurt, I wondered if He would answer that prayer and undo the harm I had done to such a large number of my neighbors through decades and decades.

Then, I realized that number of people I had directly hurt was dwarfed by the number of people I had hurt by not helping when I had the chance. The Sins of Omission, after all, are still sins and many are mortal. I realized a little of how much I was asking when I found myself saying “God, please bless and make whole every person whom I have injured. Grant me your forgiveness, and theirs.” included blessing all the people I hadn’t helped, and all the harm that had caused to those hurt by the fact that I had not helped the person who would have helped them. I knew I was getting to a place where God’s immense Programming Power could finally be glimpsed a little more clearly.

I could get at least a crude notion of how much programming He would need to have His loving Sub-Programmers do to undo the bad that I had done and the vastly larger re-programming necessary to make up for the good that I hadn’t. But, I simultaneously realized that even something so vast as re-programming the lives and surroundings of thousands of people to “bless and make whole every person whom I have injured” and to obtain “Your forgiveness, and theirs.” was but the work of a moment, and something that He, in His great love, wanted, and wants, to do.

For each and every one of us.

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