Forgiveness

confess, repent, Confession, forgiveness

As typically happens when I sit down to write, I began thinking about which experiences and events over the last few weeks would make for a suitable article. And this past month there has been a lot going on.

But the month of May, Mary’s month, is now winding down, as is the Easter season.  Classes for First Communion and Confirmation in the parish are also coming to an end.   Soon these Sacraments will be administered.

But what came to mind this month was something unrelated to any of these things.  Or maybe it’s related to all of them.  It is a theme that shows us Mary’s intercession makes sense of the Easter season, and gives meaning to everything that we do: the topic of forgiveness.

In the past week alone, I spoke with several people who sought my advice.  Their questions centered almost exclusively on the problem of forgiveness. These people suffered real injuries and were truly hurt. However, their situations were further complicated by well-meaning people who told them to “get over it,” to “suck it up,” or “forgive and forget.”

Several years ago, I wrote an article about forgiveness in general terms. But now I want to examine two oft-repeated maxims: that forgiveness means excusing another person’s faults, and that we need to forgive and forget.

Forgiving and Excusing

One impediment that often arises in forgiving others is thinking that forgiving means excusing. In other words, if I forgive Johnny for, say, stealing my money, in essence I’m saying everything is okay, and I’m excusing his act.  I’m saying all is well, no wrong was really committed, and that’s that. In reality, though, forgiving and excusing are opposite end of the spectrum.

The best explanation that I have read is that given by C. S. Lewis, in his Essay on Forgiveness (audio version of essay here):

“If one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive. In that sense forgiveness and excusing are almost opposites. Of course, in dozens of cases, either between God and man, or between one man and another, there may be a mixture of the two. Part of what at first seemed to be the sins turns out to be really nobody’s fault and is excused; the bit that is left over is forgiven . . .

“Forgiving . . . does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive.

“This doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart — every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.”

Some Parsing

With this dense text, we can consider a few of Lewis’ lines in detail.

“But if that were so [that forgiveness meant excusing], there would be nothing to forgive.” If forgiving meant excusing, then there would really be nothing to forgive. For instance, if a friend tells you that he didn’t attend your birthday party he had promised to attend because he was sick in the hospital, you consider him excused, not forgiven. There was a legitimate reason for his absence.  So we don’t attribute the absence to spite, vengeance, apathy, or any number of other possible causes other than the illness.

However, if the friend were to tell you that he skipped out on the party because he wanted to spite you, or because he really doesn’t care about your friendship, then forgiveness comes into play.  This is a case of a true injury or offense, and no excuse.

Oftentimes in matters that call for forgiveness, there is a mix of excuses such as mitigating factors, lack of knowledge, or confusion, together with malice. This is what Lewis considers as well, as he writes, shortly after the text above:

“One must therefore begin by attending to everything which may show that the other man was not so much to blame as we thought. But even if he is absolutely fully to blame we still have to forgive him; and even if ninety-nine per cent of his apparent guilt can be explained away by really good excuses, the problem of forgiveness begins with the one per cent of guilt that is left over.”

Some Perspective

Forgiveness involves seeing things in perspective. Perhaps the person’s circumstances and surroundings can explain part, or almost all, of their harmful action. On the other hand, perhaps there are simply no excuses to be made.  Maybe the act was a deliberate, evil choice made knowingly and willingly. However, in either case, it is not what is excusable or defensible that is to be forgiven.  Rather, it is with what is left over that forgiveness has its work.

Lewis also touches on the second point: “This doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise.” In other words, what Lewis is saying is that forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting. I agree, and I think there are at least three reasons that prove that this is the case and that the oft-repeated adage, “Forgive and forget,” is wrong.

First, this truth stems from human nature itself.  Memory is precious gift from God, one that distinguishes us from plants and lower animals. How then, can forgiveness mean that a person must destroy or break down that storehouse of times and events gone by?  Even if those times and events were negative and painful, it would seem to go against that gift and the purpose God has for it.

Second, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, an important part of the virtue of prudence is memory. This is because past experiences teach us what to pay attention to, what is important, and how to act in future situations. To completely forget the past, including injuries and sufferings, would make us imprudent.

Thirdly, sometimes it is simply impossible to forget an injury received. Our Lord does not command us to do the impossible, although He does command us to forgive. Hence the only conclusion is that forgiving and forgetting are two separate things.

A Separation

To see how this could be, consider, for instance, the case of a person who has lost a leg in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. The person cannot simply “forget” that they are missing a leg, nor can they cast into oblivion the recollection of what brought about that loss.  The person lives with it, day in and day out.

So then, what does forgiveness do? It changes the way we see the past.  We no longer see the past with fear, anxiety, or anguish, but rather with calm.

“The truth is [however],” says Pope Saint John Paul II, “that one cannot remain a prisoner of the past, for individuals and peoples need a sort of ‘healing of memories,’ so that past evils will not come back again. This does not mean forgetting past events; it means re-examining them with a new attitude and learning precisely from the experience of suffering that only love can build up, whereas hatred produces devastation and ruin.”

So even the late Pontiff, then, agrees.  Forgiveness is not forgetting.  It is a change of perspective, a different attitude, that we take with respect to past hurts and the people who caused them.

Consequences

Some have asked if going to the police and reporting a crime represents a lack of forgiveness, since they were told as much years earlier. The short answer is no. Sin is an offense against God and against the person who was hurt.  But it is also an offense against the human community. We see this affirmed by John Paul II in his Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (Par. 15):

“Since by sinning man refuses to submit to God, his internal balance is also destroyed and it is precisely within himself that contradictions and conflicts arise. Wounded in this way, man almost inevitably causes damage to the fabric of his relationship with others and with the created world. This is an objective law and an objective reality, verified in so many ways in the human psyche and in the spiritual life as well as in society, where it is easy to see the signs and effects of internal disorder.

“The mystery of sin is composed of this twofold wound which the sinner opens in himself and in his relationship with his neighbor. Therefore one can speak of personal and social sin: from one point of view, every sin is personal; from another point of view, every sin is social insofar as and because it also has social repercussions.”

In a sense, every sin is social. There are no private sins because every sin has consequences in society. Sometimes, these consequences are less clear, but in sins such as murder, we clearly see how the whole society is affected.

A Complicated Obligation

We live in society, with laws that are intended to help protect the common good and social order. As such, not only is it acceptable to ask the police to intervene and the court system to provide justice, it can also be an obligation. If we know a murderer is on the loose, not only is it acceptable to tell the police, it’s also an obligation.  It helps to maintain order in society and to protect others.

There are, however, some complications. On the one hand, there isn’t always a perfect correspondence or overlap between what is legal and what is morally permissible, or between what is illegal and what is immoral. Some things might be legal but immoral (e.g., abortion or euthanasia).  And some things may be illegal but morally permissible (e.g., home schooling in some countries).

Another caveat is the tendency to think that the justice of the legal system will satisfy the longing for vengeance and give peace. Sometimes people seek justice in the legal system, as they are entitled to, but use that justice as a guise to hide their desire for revenge. The problem is that no matter how hard the sentence, no matter the amount of money won, if there is no internal process of forgiveness, such things are of no use.

The Healing Balm of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is an essential part of our lives here on earth, because all of us are hurt at some point or another. The big things and major injuries get our attention, but all of us have those daily difficulties that require the healing balm of forgiveness. As C. S. Lewis ends his essay, he notes how difficult it is to forgive:

“This is hard. It is perhaps not so hard to forgive a single great injury. But to forgive the incessant provocations of daily life – to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son – how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night “Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.” We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it is to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what He says.”

It is a grace that we must understand, so that we can ask for precisely what we need: not to forget, nor to excuse, but to see even these difficult moments under a new light.

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9 thoughts on “Forgiveness”

  1. Pingback: Forgiveness: A Path Towards Redemption and Love - Catholic Stand

  2. Pingback: Forgiveness – A Closer Look - Catholic Stand

  3. Pingback: SVNDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit

  4. Fr. Nathaniel Dreyer

    Hi Elmer,

    Thanks for the comment! Yes, there are certainly times when we can tell people that they’re in the wrong (I find sometimes the people already know they’ve done wrong, and other times it doesn’t help them); there’s a certain maturity that it takes in order to say, calmly, “Hey, that really hurt me.”

    God bless,
    Fr. Nate

  5. The most common mistake Christians make with regard to forgiveness is to think that it must be automatic, regardless of whether or not the offender is repentant. Since the forgiveness that Jesus calls for is intended for the peace and well-being of the Christian community, such an open-ended policy of forgiveness would be counter-productive and even harmful. There must be a willingness on the part of the offender to admit his wrongdoing, and a willingness to change his ways. Otherwise forgiveness should be withheld.

    1. Fr. Nathaniel Dreyer

      Hi,
      That’s an interesting point that you raise. It’s true that forgiveness is not automatic; it’s something that takes effort and is a repeated choice. It’s also true that sometimes it might be easier to forgive if the person asks for forgiveness. However, I’m not sure that having the offender admit their wrong and desire to change is one of the conditions that Christ lays down for forgiveness. For instance, in the Our Father, Christ tells us that we should pray that our trepasses be forgiven as we forgive others, without any sort of condition. I think that the distinction between excusing and forgiving might be important here. If someone does wrong to us, and doesn’t acknowledge it or apologize, our forgiveness doesn’t say that they were in the right, or that they didn’t offend us. What forgiveness does is change our attitude; we’re no longer bound to the past injury. Our forgiveness doesn’t exonerate the person; they will still need to answer for their actions between God and perhaps before society. However, I don’t think it’s quite right to say that our forgiveness is contingent on the person asking for it.
      God bless!
      Fr. Nate

    2. I agree with Fr Dreyer – no where in the bible does it say “If your brother sins [against you], WAIT for him to apologize”. In fact, Matthew says this: “If your brother sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.” Luke says this: “If your brother sins, rebuke him…”

      Why is this great advice?

      Because it is easier! For example, let’s say the offending brother was drunk. The offending brother will feel like an idiot for having said or done something stupid. When the blameless brother is first to act, charitably, (and why would it NOT be charitably since he is blameless), the offending brother at least knows they are still on “speaking terms”.

      This doesn’t mean the offending brother will be contrite, but it is the best approach…of course, after all, it is Jesus’ advice.

  6. an ordinary papist

    And then there is the forgiveness that requires no further contact because that person’s
    very presence has become, ‘ an occasion of sin ‘ which could reconstitute all the ill will
    at the first sign of repeating.

    1. Fr. Nathaniel Dreyer

      Hi Ordinary Papist,
      Exactly! Forgiveness can be given without contact with the offending person. That’s not usually the example I think I’ve seen people think of; usually people ask about being able to forgive someone who has disappeared or has died. In those cases, and in the case you mention, you can certain offer prayers for them and forgive them even if you don’t or can’t meet them in person.
      God bless,
      Fr. Nate

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