AND FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS AS WE

FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS 

There are people who, when saying the Lord's prayer, omit the second part of this supplication /as we forgive our debtors/. They fear the responsibility. But God is decisive in demanding this responsibility from us. He will forgive us in the same way we forgive others. It is insane to fear that responsibility and fail to fulfill that condition. For we are indebted to God infinitely more than the whole world could ever be indebted to us. We owe Him our life, our mind, our health, we owe Him the light, the rain and everything we own, know, or are able to do. In the Gospel, all the debts we owe one another in proportion to what we owe the Lord, are balanced out as 100 denarii to 10.000 talents. Lastly, when we borrow from someone, we take from him what belongs to God and we also give him back that which belongs to God. For everything is God's, as the righteous man said: Naked I have come out of my mother's womb and naked I shall return" /Job 1, 21/.

Those learned theologians are right in asserting that debts mean human sins. We pray to God to forgive us our sins towards Him just as we forgive others; sins towards us. Quite right. But both debt and sin need to be paid off.  Both can be forgiven if we forgive our debtors. Lend, hoping for nothing in return." /Lk, 6, 35/  If a debt is paid back to you, accept it; if your debtor cannot pay you back, forgive him. For you, too, cannot pay back your debts to the heavenly Father.

In the infinitely complex maze of financial science, this science is the only way and only solution.

Give and you will be given. Forgive and you will be forgiven.

St. Nikolai of Zhicha