It always makes a deep impression on me that the next to the last petition of the Our Father – “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” -is the only one that the Lord has provided with a commentary that is also a demand: “as we forgive…” If you do not forgive one another- that thought is implicit there – how is the Father to forgive you? But in the text we are considering it is primarily the other side -the genuinely human aspect- that is addressed. The original cell of all human society is the family. That is where we learn the fundamental relationships of human society and, consequently, also the ability to relate to God. Only in the family can the togetherness of love overcome the opposition of otherness to true community. It is there that the generations learn to understand one another. On the preservation of the family depends a nation’s capacity for peace. When the family no longer brings together male and female, old and young, the basic human relationships are changed into a battle of all against all. That is why the transmission from fathers to children is the prerequisite for the beginning of the Messianic peace. And the destruction of the family is therefore the most certain sign of the Antichrist, the disturber of the peace, disguised as one who brings freedom and peace. Among experts the question is raised: “Yes, but who actually needs to be converted? Must the fathers yield to the young? Or the young to the fathers?”…It is not a case of one group’s yielding to the other, but of both groups’ yielding to the other by renewing their courage to believe in God. It is only thus that they will learn to accept and understand one another. It is only when hearts have been turned to God that there can arise the courage of togetherness, the confidence in other persons, and so the ability to love them and to endure their otherness.
From: Diener eurer Freude, pp.47-48
