Saint Gregory of Nyssa on Forgiveness

The forgiveness of debts is a unique and special prerogative of God.

It was said: “No one can forgive sins but God alone” (Mk 2:7).

A person obtains confidence in prayer by willingly imitating every conceivable attribute of God who is both kind and gentle, the source of all blessings and the dispenser of mercies to all.

It is not becoming that an evil person should enjoy intimacy with a good person, nor that a person who wallows in impure thoughts should have communion with one who is pure and undefiled.

In like manner, hardness of heart separates the supplicant from the love of God.

Whoever holds someone else in bitter bondage because of outstanding debts has by his own conduct excluded himself from divine love.

What communion can there be between love and cruelty, kindness and harshness, or any attribute and its opposite that is evil? Mutual opposition keeps them separated. For whoever is possessed by any particular attribute is necessarily estranged from its opposite.

Just as one who dies no longer lives, and the one who lives is estranged from death, so also he who approaches the love of God must necessarily be removed from every disposition of callousness.

Whoever is free of all those dispositions understood as being evil, he becomes in some way god by reason of his condition having achieved in himself what reason understands to be attributes of God.

Do you see to what greatness the Lord exalts those who hear Him through the words of the prayer? He transforms human nature in some way to be closer to the divine. He decrees that those who approach God should become gods.

Why do you come to God, He says, in a slavish manner, trembling in fear and plagued by your own conscience? Why do you exclude yourself from the confidence which coexists with the freedom of the soul from the beginning and which is intrinsic to the essence of your nature?

Why do you use flattery with Him who cannot be flattered? Why do you direct fawning and flattering words to the One who looks at deeds?

Every blessing that comes from God is permissible to you. You can possess it with a free spirit. Be your own judge. Cast the saving vote for yourself. Do you ask God to forgive your debts? Forgive the debts of others and God will cast his favorable ballot.

You yourself are the lord of judgment concerning your neighbor. This judgment, whatever it maybe, will bring an equal decision upon you. For whatever you decide to do, will be ratified by the divine judgment in your case, too.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – c 394): Fifth homily on the Lord’s prayer.

Saint Gregory of Nyssa on Prayer and Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is the foundation of Christian prayer, yet often seems like an obligation or afterthought to the time I want Jesus to spend fixing my problems. Awareness of its importance is one reminder not to skimp on gratitude in prayer, and so I have been looking at teachings on it over the course of the last several weeks.

This excerpt is from Saint Gregory's teaching on the Lord's Prayer and is a very circumspect reflection on how objective inspection of life yields more than enough reasons for gratitude to God.



In return for all that we have received, we have but one gift to exchange with the Benefactor – prayer and thanksgiving.

I can envision the possibility that we could extend our conversation with God in thanksgiving and prayer for the whole duration of life.

Nevertheless, we would still fall so short in adequate exchanged value, as if we had never even begun to think about a return gift to the Benefactor.

For example, the Lord’s generosity is received in all dimensions of time measured in three parts the past, the present, and the future.

If you think of the present, it is in Him that you live. If the future, it is He who is the hope of your expectations. If the past, you did not even exist before you were created by Him.

You benefited by receiving your very existence from Him. Once born, you benefited by living and moving in Him (Acts 17:28), as the Apostle says.

Your future hopes are dependent on the same divine energy… for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ʻFor we are also His offspring.ʼ

Only the present is at your disposal, but even if you never cease giving thanks to God, you will barely render satisfaction for the gift of the present.

Neither for the future, nor for the past, can you conceive some way to give back sufficient thanks to God for all the things you owe Him.

Yet we are so lacking in thanksgiving that we do not show gratitude even in what is possible:

[...]  Who has laid out the earth beneath my feet? Who has given me reason to make the seas passable? Who has established heaven for my sake? Who lights up the sun before my eyes? Who “makes springs gush forth in valleys” (Ps 104:10)?

[...] Who has made me, lifeless dust that I am, to share in both life and reason? Who has formed this clay according to the image of the divine seal? Who has restored again in me that ancient beauty of the divine image which had been darkened by sin?

Having been exiled from paradise and deprived of the tree of life, who draws me back to the original bliss from being engulfed in the pit of material life? Scripture says, “There is no one who has understanding” (Rom 3:11).

If we contemplated these things, we would offer endless thanksgiving without ceasing throughout our entire life. But now nearly all human beings are quick to pursue only material things.

[...]  But no word whatever is said about God’s true blessings, whether those visible or those promised.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): First Homily on The Lord’s Prayer.