The Ignatian Guide to Forgiveness: Ten Steps to Healing

by Marina Berzins McCoy

2021 Illumination Book Awards, Bronze Spirituality

Forgiveness is hard. But Jesus knows how much we need it. True forgiveness can be complicated because the pain of betrayal, loss, deception, and personal attack clings tightly to our emotions, memories, even our bodies. We may intend to forgive yet become stuck in our own mixed motives, others’ silence or anger, and the skewed stories we believe and tell about our lives.

In The Ignatian Guide to Forgiveness , Marina McCoy delves into the principles of Ignatian spirituality and uses gentle honesty to lay out 10 steps toward forgiveness,
Each chapter offers stories, real-life steps to take, and a powerful prayer for healing 

Forgiveness is hard, but it’s also possible—with our “habits of mercy” and God’s abundant grace.

144 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2020

Reviews

[Kristjan · Rating 4 out of 5]

… and forgive us our trespassers as we forgive those who trespass against us …

It can be hard to forgive others who have hurt us; but that is what Jesus has called us to do.

The Ignatian Guide to Forgiveness outlines Ten Steps (10) to help us with the second half of that plea, using the spirituality methods developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Each step has some connection to the Spiritual Exercises (and Prayer), where you are frequently invited to recite a specific type of prayer and/or asked to visualize a particular scene (typically taken from the Gospel). The scenes are typically broken down into helpful bullet points to guide you through them. In addition, the author includes personal vignettes from her own life as examples of how it all can work.

1. Find your desire
2. Embrace being a creature and name your inner pharisee
3. Honor anger but deepen compassion
4. Trust in abundant Grace
5. Leave behind the locked room (forgive yourself)
6. Let go and make friends with time
7. Create new narratives
8, Embrace the child but become the parent
9. Cultivate habits of mercy
10. Celebrate

The book is well organized and thoughtful and I have no doubt it offers some benefit to anyone truly struggling with forgiveness. For me personally, I had some trouble connecting to the anecdotal stories (not totally unexpected since my life has taken a different path) and the imaginary exercises (also not surprising since I am very new to Ignatian spirituality). I would guess that all of this will get easier with practice, and this book was presented in a way to facility such practice.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
#TheIgnatianGuidetoForgiveness #NetGalley

[Joe A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I read a lot of books about self-help and betterment, and I really liked how this focused on empathy. The other did a great job and reminding the Rehder that our emotions are not enemies, but rather informant, and to honor your anger, but deepen your compassion by being empathetic with your assailant figuratively speaking and trying to see from their point of view I felt like this was introduced in chapter 3, and then hit Hohmann chapter 7, which was her on creating new narratives and seeing something from another person‘s point of view

Overall, I definitely didn’t agree with everything but as a baseline, this was a really good book. I definitely recommended to someone going through a break up, especially if you’re a young adult or even in a tricky relationship we have a hard time understanding your partner. I think it puts a great emphasis on seeing something through their shoes before just assuming their intent or behavior behavior.

Overall, in a binary scale from zero to one I give this book a one

[Brandi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rich and powerful companion as you work through your own need to forgive. We all have hurts, scars and bruises. Some are easier to deal with than others. None just go away on their own. This book is a beautiful guide to use as you work through the Ignatian ten steps of forgiveness. You will get out of this what you are willing to put into it. Highly recommended for all wounded hearts, counselors and spiritual directors.
I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley and all opinions expressed are my own, freely given.

[Mandy Hazen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forgiveness is a difficult thing. It is so easy for us to say we forgive. But to actually do it is quite difficult. This book walks you through responsible ways to make this happen. It takes an empathetic approach and gives bite size approaches and allows you to have kindness and patience with yourself when dealing with life. This is so necessary for everyone to read in life. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Ignatian Guide to Forgiveness is an interesting book. I solely chose this book because of the subject of forgiveness. Despite having different religious views than what was presented in the book, I still learned a lot about forgiveness. I like how the author said that you can still forgive people and still feel hurt on what was done to you. Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read this book. (This review is also on GoodReads.)

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was great. So many pages I took photos of because I know I'll refer to them later. Well-written and easy to follow.