Thomas Merton spent his early years without the constant presence of loving parents. In his years as a young man he embraced the street life of New York city with all of its detours from God. Finally, he sensed the void, found Him, converted to Catholicism and became a Trappist monk. Tom became one of the great minds of Catholic literature in mid twentieth century America, writing many works reflective of God’s attempt to speak to us over the noise of our times.His Prayer of Trust reflects his journey and really, all of us trying to do the right thing.

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me toface my perils alone.”  -Thomas Merton

If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him; and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times and says, “I repent,” you must forgive him.

Jesus
Luke 17:3-4

God forgives, but (not without) repentance.

Muhammed
The Sayings of Muhammed, 209

The unwillingness to admit that we have been hurt is one of the major impediments to forgiving.

Robert D. Enright, PhD
Forgiveness is a Choice, 2001

If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses.

Jesus
Matthew 6:14-15

People will sometimes forgive you the good you have done them, but seldom the harm they have done you.

W. Somerset Maugham
A Writer’s Notebook, 1949

You saw his weakness, that he’l ne’er forgive.

Friedrich von Schiller
William Tell, 3.1, 1804

Ministers ask: Is it possible for God to forgive Man? And when I think of what has been suffered- of the centuries of agony and tears, I ask: Is it possible for man to forgive God?

Robert Ingersoll
The Foundations of Faith

Of God we ask one favor,
That we may be forgiven-
For what, he is presumed to know-
The Crime, from us, is hidden.

Emily Dickinson

The folly which we might have ourselves committed is the one which we are least ready to pardon in another.

Joseph Roux
Meditations of a Parish Priest, 4.84, 1886