Almost every time I celebrate the mass, there is one phrase that often seems to stand out. It is at the consecration when the priest says: ‘This is the chalice of my blood which will be shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.’ That phrase summarizes the death and resurrection of Christ, the mass and the heart of our faith. God has gone to the greatest lengths, so that our sins can be forgiven. He has won that forgiveness but we must ask for it.
One of the things that seems to cause the most division that people so often tell me about in confession, is division in families over things like wills, where land or money has been left to someone and others in the family feel hard done by; sometimes over children who won’t forgive parents for their mistakes, or parents who won’t forgive their children, but especially over wills. It is very sad, but it is amazing how much of it exists. We decide that we can’t forgive, or won’t forgive, because we have been hurt too deeply. Unforgiveness is probably the single biggest obstacle to God’s grace helping us in this life. If I refuse to forgive someone, I am preventing the Lord from helping me, because this is one thing that the Lord tells us to do.
No doubt all of us here expect to be forgiven by God when we die. That’s what our faith teaches us, but I wonder do all of us feel that we also have to forgive those who have wronged us. This is what the Lord tells us we must do, if we hope to be forgiven ourselves. We say it every time we pray the Our Father: ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Jesus used many parables to emphasize this. One parable is this:
[Mat:18:23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”]
That last line is quite frightening: “And that is how my heavenly Father will treat you, unless you forgive your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:23-35). The smallest sin we commit against God, is infinitely greater than sins we commit against each other, because there is an infinite distance between God’s holiness and our sinfulness.
There is also a common misunderstanding about forgiveness, and it is this: many people have the idea that in order to forgive someone who has hurt me, I must feel like forgiving them. In other words I must have got to the stage where I no longer feel the hurt, and so therefore I can forgive. That is not how it works. If most of us were to wait until we actually felt like forgiving someone who has hurt us, we would probably never forgive. This is where people get stuck: forgiveness is not based on how you feel, but is a decision of our will. I decide to forgive someone, because the Lord asks me to and by doing that I then open the door to allow the Lord to begin to help me get over the hurt. Or to put it the other way around: if I refuse to forgive someone, I am preventing God from helping me to be healed of the hurt. I will not begin to heal as long as the unforgiveness remains.
‘Lord I forgive John, please help me to heal.’ When we decide to forgive, we are not saying that what happened no longer matters, or that it wasn’t wrong, or that we no longer feel the pain. We are choosing to forgive the person, so that we can heal. We are letting go of the resentment. We may have to say those words many more times throughout our life, but as long as we do, then we will begin to heal. If I refuse to forgive someone, I become consumed with the hurt, the resentment and anger. It eats away at me like a cancer. I am the one who suffers. You may feel that by refusing to forgive, you are punishing the other person. The truth is they may not even be aware of the hurt they have caused. You are the one who is suffering and the key to healing is in your hands.
The deeper the hurt, the harder it is to forgive and the Lord knows that. That is why Jesus spoke about it so many times. When the Apostles asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, He gave them the Our Father. The Our Father is a way of praying, not just a prayer and two whole lines of it are to do with forgiveness. ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’ If we expect to be forgiven, we too must forgive.
It is a terrible thing to meet someone in the later years of their life who has refused to forgive. You can see it in their face. They are angry and bitter and they are not at peace about anything. That is not what the Lord wants for any of us and so He shows us the way out. The key is in our own hands.
When you find yourself angry with someone, it usually means you need to forgive them. I doubt if there is anyone who doesn’t need to forgive someone and so many of the stories people tell me are about serious injustices. The bigger the wrong we have experienced the harder it is to forgive. But remind yourself, it is not about how you feel. It is a decision, a choice.
St. Maria Goretti died just before her 12th birthday, in 1902. Her family were poor farmers and shared a house with another family, a father and two sons. One of the sons, Alessandro Serenelli, continually tried to seduce her, but she refused. One day he managed to get her on her own and tried to rape her. She refused and wouldn’t give in to him. Then in a fit of rage he stabbed her fifteen times. She died the next day from her wounds. Initially when Alessandro was imprisoned, he was unrepented and bragged about what he had done. Some years later she appeared to him in a dream and gave him fifteen lilies. He realized that each one represented each of the times that he had stabbed her and that she had forgiven him. From then on, he became deeply repentant, so much so that he was eventually let out of jail early (after 27 years) because of his exemplary behaviour. After he was released he went to her mother to beg her forgiveness. His mother said to him, ‘If Maria can forgive you, then I must forgive you too.’ I can’t imagine the grief and anger that her mother must have gone through, but she forgave Alessandro and I have no doubt that will have brought her peace and set her free.
When you are dying, will the injustices carried out against you still matter? Will you still refuse to forgive? The Lord tells us that we will not get into heaven until we forgive those who have wronged us. What is important is that we try, as opposed to refusing. The key to healing is in our own hands, but it is a choice, not a feeling.
‘And that is how my heavenly Father will deal with you, unless you forgive your brother from your heart.’
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