"Community is not possible without the willingness to forgive one another "seventy-seven times" (see Matthew 18:22). Forgiveness is the cement of community life. Forgiveness holds us together through good and bad times, and it allows us to grow in mutual love. But what is there to forgive or to ask forgiveness for? As people who have hearts that long for perfect love, we have to forgive one another for not being able to give or receive that perfect love in our everyday lives. Our many needs constantly interfere with our desire to be there for the other unconditionally. Our love is always limited by spoken or unspoken conditions."(Henri Nouwen) How true this is in everyday life, especially in family life! The fundamental community, after with God, is the community of those we are with on a daily basis. We want love from them and they want love from us; we want acceptance and understanding; they want the same. In the times we and they have failed, those are the times forgiveness is most needed. But it is in these relationships that we probably fail the most to forgive and ask forgiveness. In turn, this damages the depth of com union we have with each other.