(photo by Tom Delaney, Sherburne County, Minnesota, 2025)

The Western Goatsbeard (Trapopogon dubius) is a favorite bloom around our pastures here in Central Minnesota. It is a flower that you will find open around dawn and closed by around noontime.

Today’s Liturgy of the Word includes a Gospel reading from Matthew with some well-known words of Jesus: ” Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (11:28). In the REACH Forgiveness Process shared at Live and Forgive presentations, guided retreats, and small group sessions, the topic of “burden” is an important one related to forgiveness. There is such a thing as “unforgiveness,” which in the REACH process is understood as the negative emotions we may have after experiencing being hurt or offended by another person: resentment, bitterness, hostility, hatred, anger, and fear. These negative emotions can combine with each other to produce further negative secondary emotions that stack upon the first ones.

Scientific research helps us see that emotions are embodied experiences for us, meaning that they are actually whole-body experiences. With any emotion, each part of the human body is messaging the brain with chemical and electrical messages that activate memories of past emotions in a part of the brain called the association cortex of the prefrontal lobe. The different patterns of neurochemical releases identify the emotion we are feeling, and its association with past experiences. Emotions also trigger the release of hormones in different parts of our body – e.g. our gut and muscles – that are also part of feeling the emotion, both in those parts of our body, as well as our brain and nervous system.

Unforgiveness is a set of negative emotions, that persists over time unless a person completes an intentional process of forgiveness that replaces those negative emotions with positive ones. The mental and physical sensations of those negative emotions are unpleasant, may persist over time and even build, and often stack up to be a perceptible mental and even physical burden. The unpleasantness of these emotions may actually be a natural motivator for us to replace the negative emotions of unforgiveness with positive emotions of forgiveness, as a way to get ourselves some relief from the burden of unforgiveness. That’s what the REACH Forgiveness Process is about.

Further in the Gospel passage, Jesus offers not only relief for those with a burden, but says “learn from me…and you will find rest for yourselves.” Could Jesus Christ be suggesting that learning the forgiveness that he taught will relieve us of burdens like unforgiveness? Of course, Jesus Christ taught that a person should not forgive a person just seven times, but rather seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:22)! Forgiveness is something where the Gospel message and neuroscience converge to help us see that forgiveness is good for us to give. the REACH Forgiveness Process helps us learn and practice the best and most enduring ways of forgiving so that we can experience relief from unforgiveness. Our minds and bodies are actually designed to experience that relief, as well as to see that forgiveness is as good for us as Jesus Christ said it would be.

This text is an original work of its author Tom Delaney and was entirely composed without the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

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If your parish or faith community is seeking a deeper experience of healing, mercy, and spiritual renewal, Live and Forgive is here to help. To begin the conversation, email Live and Forgive presenter and facilitator Tom Delaney at tom@liveandforgive.com—Tom will be glad to connect with you in a spirit of welcome, respect, and shared faith.