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AUGUST 21, 2008
Forgive all injuries
Part seven of a series on the Spiritual Works of Mercy
“Truth standing on its head,” that is how paradox has been defined. It also could describe the teaching of Jesus about forgiveness.
When Jesus tells Peter how often he needs to forgive his brother (70 X 7 times), Peter is completely bewildered! To be sure, he knew that Jesus is patient beyond all imagining, and he could see why His enemies called Him “a friend of sinners.” Peter even conjectured that his Master might ask him to forgive his brother as often as seven times (Cf. Mt 18:21ff). But to set no limit to one’s forgiveness (which Jesus is doing here), went far beyond Peter’s reckoning. It also surpasses our own common sense, perhaps because it surpasses our human ability.
Of all the Works of Mercy, this is the most difficult to understand and the most impossible to do unless we rely on the mercy of God. As the saying goes, “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” To forgive all injuries we must be one with Jesus, allowing His Spirit to work freely within us.
Whatever happened to justice?
In primitive societies, especially nomadic ones, it was common to find the social position of an “avenger.” We find this position described in the Old Testament, especially in the Book of Leviticus (Cf. chapters 21ff). The avenger (go’el in Hebrew) had the serious duty of protecting the community to which he belonged. Among other things, this required him to practice blood-revenge if a community member was injured or murdered. In the case of death, he had the duty of killing the murderer or a member of his family. This was understood as a matter of strict justice.
In order to keep the avenger from acting beyond reasonable limits, strict laws were established, such as those listed in Exodus (21:23-25), “if injury ensues, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” St. Peter may well have had this Biblical passage in mind when He questioned Jesus on the limits of forgiveness. Indeed, forgiveness seems to fly in the face of what justice demands. How can forgiveness and justice stand side by side? Only through the mystery of God’s love on the Cross is this marriage possible.
Pope Benedict XVI explains in his first encyclical (Deus Caritas Est, #10), “God’s passionate love for his people — for humanity — is at the same time a forgiving love. It is so great that it turns God against Himself, His love against His justice. Here Christians can see a dim prefigurement of the mystery of the Cross: so great is God’s love for man that by becoming man He follows Him even into death, and so reconciles justice and love.”
The wisdom of God’s mercy surpasses common sense. It runs contrary to the tendencies of our fallen human nature. Where we feel bitterness, despair and revenge, Christ puts forgiveness, pardon and love. Then, He gives us the ability to enter into those realities in union with Him.
Living in an age of revenge
Revenge, unfortunately, has not gone the way of dinosaurs. It has not disappeared from human experience. Iraq and Afghanistan, 9-11 and Pope Benedict’s Speech in Regensburg bear witness to a world teeming with cries for retaliation. But we need not look so far afield to hear such deafening cries. Indeed, the struggle between revenge and forgiveness takes place in every human heart. Its point of departure is the guilt we carry within the shadows of the mind.
Since vengeance seems spontaneously to erupt from our hearts, how can we be expected to forgive those who wrong us? Is it humanly possible to just forget about it? Certainly we cannot excuse it. The past cannot be denied or explained away and it certainly cannot be undone. These are the tough but real questions that injustice and wrong stir up within us.
The Holy Father, in his insightful commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, writes: “How to overcome guilt is a central question for every human life… Guilt calls forth retaliation. The result is a chain of trespasses in which the evil of guilt grows ceaselessly and becomes more and more inescapable… guilt can be overcome only by forgiveness, not by retaliation. God is a God who forgives, because He loves His creatures; but forgiveness can only penetrate and become effective in one who is himself forgiving.”
These words of Pope Benedict in his book “Jesus of Nazareth” (p. 157) explain why forgiveness is essential to human life. They also highlight the need to pray sincerely as Jesus taught us, “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” While past wrongs cannot be denied or swept under the rug, they can be transformed by love. Relationships which have been broken by sin need not poison the present or the future. God transforms the world through His forgiveness and He enables us to be part of His transforming love.
As the Lord has forgiven you
To understand the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, we must keep in mind all that has preceded it: i.e. calling God “Father” and asking Him “give us this day our daily bread.” After all, we should not dare to ask for forgiveness unless we are indeed His beloved sons and daughters; and only the “daily bread” He provides makes it possible for us to “forgive those who trespass against us.” Once we have encountered the living God in Christ and accepted His gift of friendship we can begin to love as He loves, and to forgive as He forgives.
Forgiveness, to our wonderment, does not diminish our dignity or run counter to the deepest longings of our souls. It actually makes us more like Christ. Conversely, not to forgive injuries shrivels our human spirit. Thoughts of revenge confound the heart and provoke chaotic turmoil in the mind. But forgiveness gives us what we most need and want: loving relationships within the family of God. God created us for love, not for revenge. Only when we forgive others (including our enemies), through the indwelling of His Spirit, can we grow to full maturity in Christ.
This is why St. Paul exhorts us (Col 3:13), “As the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.” Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis eloquently describes what happens within us when we enter into the mystery of God’s mercy through forgiveness (“Fire of Mercy,” II, p. 263f), “My pardon of others, if it is thorough and genuine, will begin to reveal to me the wealth of goodness of God’s Heart. If His command enables me to do this in imitation of Him, what must the fire of His love be capable of? The practice of forgiveness opens me out interiorly and efficaciously disposes me to receive the inner life of God.”
Copyright 2008 The Catholic Sun.
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