Forgiveness Heals

From “The Road of Hope: A Gospel from Prison” by Cardinal Francis-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận: If you are faced with ungrateful people who have betrayed you or falsely accused you, what hurts you the most is the irrational malice which has poured out of those from whom you have least expected it. Nevertheless, your reaction should be:

From "Offer Forgiveness and Receive Peace" by Saint John Paul II (30th World Day of Peace, January 1, 1997):

Believers know that reconciliation comes from God, Who is always ready to forgive those who turn to Him and turn their back on their sins (cf. Isaiah 38:17). God's immense love goes far beyond human understanding, as Sacred Scripture says: "Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you" (Isaiah 49:15).

Divine love is the foundation of the reconciliation to which all of us are called. "It is He Who forgives all your guilt, Who heals every one of your ills; Who redeems your life from the grave, Who crowns you with love and compassion.... He does not treat us according to our sins nor repay us according to our faults" (Psalm 103:3-4, 10).

In His loving readiness to forgive, God went even to the point of giving Himself to the world in the Person of His Son Who came to bring redemption to every individual and all humanity. In the face of human offenses, which culminated in His condemnation to death on the Cross, Jesus prayed: 'Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).

God's forgiveness is the expression of His loving kindness as our Father. In the Gospel parable of the prodigal son (cf. Luke 15:11-32), the father runs to meet his son as soon as he sees him coming home. He does not even let the son apologize: everything is forgiven (cf. Luke 15:20-22). The intense joy of forgiveness, offered and received, heals seemingly incurable wounds, restores relationships, and firmly roots them in God's inexhaustible love.

Throughout His life, Jesus proclaimed God's forgiveness, but He also taught the need for mutual forgiveness as the condition for obtaining it. In the Lord's Prayer, He makes us pray: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us" (Matthew 6:12). With that "as", He places in our hands the measure with which we shall be judged by God.

The parable of the unforgiving servant, punished for his hardness of heart towards his fellow servant (cf. Matthew 18:23-35), teaches us that those who are unwilling to forgive exclude themselves by this very fact from divine forgiveness: "So also My heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart" (Matthew 18:35).

From "The Way of Forgiveness" by Father Patrick Brennan:

The experience of being forgiven should sensitize us to the physical and emotional suffering of people everywhere, especially the plight of people trapped in injustice. The process of sorrow and forgiveness might lead us to pray for these people, prompt us to acts of charity on their behalf, and beyond that, to work for social justice. Having been forgiven, we should grow in prayer and activities that address the radical lack of respect for life present in our materialistic, militaristic world. We should work on behalf of the unborn, the elderly, the mentally ill, those sentenced to the death penalty, those who suffer from discrimination based on their race or gender, those suffering the ravages of terrorism and war, those who know the evil effects of domestic and other forms of daily violence, and the many who have been victimized by guns and other weapons....

When we think that we are done with sorrow and forgiveness, we discover there is much more to do and to learn within our own unique personal experience, as well as in the world in which we live.

Prayer: Father God, Your Son's Resurrection has begun the destruction of sin, suffering, and death. I thank You that through the experience of being forgiven, I share in the victory of Christ's Paschal mystery (i.e., the redemptive work of Christ). Help me always to use experiences of sorrow and being forgiven as learning experiences. Reveal to me to whom else I should be returning with sorrow. Reveal to me whom else I should be working at forgiving. I pray in Jesus' Name, Amen.

From an article by The Daughters of St. Paul:

In 2006, a man walked into an Amish school In Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, and shot 10 girls between the ages of nine and 13. The shooter, Charles Roberts, then committed suicide. In the midst of their grief over this shocking loss, the Amish community didn't cast blame. Instead, it reached out with grace and compassion toward the killer's family. That same day, Amish neighbors visited the Roberts family to comfort them in their sorrow and pain. Amish mourners outnumbered the non-Amish at Roberts' funeral. The Amish didn't wait: their automatic reaction was to forgive....

Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin and seeing it in all its horror, dirt, meanness, and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the person who has done it. Forgiving does not mean excusing; they're two very different things. Some people think if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or hurt them, you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or hurting; if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. We are called, instead, to make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in our own hearts, to turn our backs on any wish to humiliate or hurt the other person....

For the Amish, forgiving didn't mean they didn't feel pain, or grieve, or even get angry. Those are normal human emotions. But forgiveness isn't an emotion; forgiveness is a choice. And for the Amish, after a lifetime—no, after the experience of generations—of taking God's commandment into their hearts, forgiveness, at the end of  the day, was the easy part. They didn't ask themselves whether they should forgive. They didn't think about how to forgive. They just did it.

"Forgiving Peter" by Saint Teresa of Calcutta

How all the apostles said, "We will stand by You, never leave You," yet when the time came, they ran away. Peter, who two days before really proclaimed Jesus as the Son of God, yet when the woman said, "You also are a follower," for fear of this woman said, "What are you talking about? I don't know Him!"

What big words he was using. Jesus had told him, "Before the cock crows twice you will deny Me three times." Read the Passion carefully.

When [Peter] looked and saw Jesus, what happened? He went out and cried, cried bitterly that he, Peter, had denied [Jesus, using] big, big words—"I have nothing to do with Him.

"What did Jesus do? Jesus' eyes met with Peter's eyes. What a living reality. What a tremendous hurt Peter gave to Jesus—yet what tender love was in the eyes of Jesus; and Peter saw that forgiveness in the eyes of Jesus, and Peter went out and cried bitterly. I read in a book that Peter cried so much there were lines in his face.

After the Resurrection, when Jesus asked Peter, "Lovest thou Me?" Peter wept. This is charity. When someone hurts you, look with kindness, never keep bitterness in your heart—take one resolution.

Jesus could have said, "Peter, what are you saying?" or He could have looked with angry eyes. We receive forgiveness from Jesus [so] that we can also give that forgiveness. Keep your heart clean. If you have done something, go to confession.

From "Victory Over Vice" by Venerable Fulton J. Sheen:

We know nothing about the inside of our neighbor's heart, and hence, we refuse to forgive. Jesus knew the heart inside out, and because He did know, He forgave. Take any scene of action, let five people look upon it, and you will get five different stories of what happened. No one of them sees all sides. Our Lord does, and that is why He forgives....

It would be less wrong to criticize others if we first criticized ourselves, for if we first turned the searchlight on our own souls, we would never feel we had a right to turn it on the soul of anyone else. It is only because we are ignorant of our true condition that we fail to realize how badly we stand in need of pardon.

Have we ever offended God? Has He any right to be angry with us? Then why should we, who need pardon so badly, strive not to purchase it by pardoning others? The answer is because we never examine our own consciences....

If we knew ourselves better, we would be more forgiving of others. The harder we are on ourselves, the easier we will be on others. The man who has never learned to obey knows not how to command, and the man who has never disciplined himself knows not how to be merciful.

It is always the selfish who are unkind to others, and those who are hardest on themselves [who] are the kindest to others, as the teacher who knows the least is always the most intolerant to his pupils.

From a talk by Father Wolfgang Seitz:

When we forgive, yes, there's always the danger that we get hurt again. But even this, take into your calculation: “Even if I get hurt again, I want to forgive. And the next time I get hurt, I want to forgive again.” Unconditional. It must be unconditional.

You know, sometimes people have “protection walls” so that the hurt doesn’t go deeper and destroy them. They say, “This or that person has hurt me. He’ll never hurt me again, ever. No. No one will hurt me again.” Such a person builds walls, imprisons himself or herself within walls. “No one will hurt me again.” Now, it’s really venomous. How long can a heart take such a pressure without exploding? To forgive him means to tear down that wall and to forgive that person.

“We are, perhaps, often tired, disillusioned, sad; we feel the weight of our sins, and we think we cannot achieve things. Let us not withdraw into ourselves; let us not lose confidence; let us not resign ourselves. There is no situation that God cannot change; there is no sin that He cannot forgive if we open ourselves to Him.

From the album "Songs of Divine Mercy" by Robert Kochis & Gretchen Harris

Arranged by David Phillips (www.gentlespiritmusic.com)

Composition by Scott Soper (lyrics based on Psalm 103:1-4, 8, 10-12)

Loving and forgiving are You, O Lord, Slow to anger, rich in kindness, Loving and forgiving are You.

All my being, bless the Lord, bless the holy name of God. All my being, bless the Lord, remembering the goodness of God.

Loving and forgiving are You, O Lord, Slow to anger, rich in kindness, Loving and forgiving are You.

God forgives us all our sins, healing those who live in pain; Saving us from final death, God fills us with goodness and love.

(Instrumental Interlude)

Good and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger, rich in love. God remembers not our sins.  Forgiving and loving is God.

Loving and forgiving are You, O Lord, Slow to anger, rich in kindness, Loving and forgiving are You.

As heaven soars above the earth, so great the love of God for us. As far as east is from the west, the Lord takes our sins from us.

Loving and forgiving are You, O Lord. Slow to anger, rich in kindness, Loving and forgiving are You.