RECOGNIZING ONESELF IN FORGIVENESS

Abstract

To confess means to aknowledge. There is a double acknowledgment in the act of asking and of accepting forgivenness. The sacrament of confession can be called a sacrament of self-knowledge. We re-discover our own self both as sinner and as forgiven. We discover a new self, when going out of our self-deceiving attitudes, while at the same time we discover a new self in the awareness of being healed, forgiven, and loved. The Buddhist enlightenment, as awareness of one”˜s Buddha-nature can be related to the Christian experience of original grace. That is why in the integration of the ignatian spirituality with the contemplative experience of Zen, both contrition and thankfulness are inseparable in the First week of the Spiritual Exercises.