What does it take to forgive? That is a very troubling thought if I am honest with myself. You see, I have been hurt and betrayed. I am betting you have too. And it is not fun and it is not easy. And we usually take that anger and pain out on the one we perceive caused the pain and betrayal. And yet, we are told to forgive and forget. As the Brits might say, “not bloody likely”. You see, I am mad and I want someone to pay for what happened. I need a place to direct my pain and hurt.
My brother told me of a person who has been in AA for over three decades and that person says, “carrying a grudge is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies”. Ouch, that makes so much sense but I wonder how much poison I have ingested over all these years. And I do know better. The Model prayer acknowledges that I must forgive the “debts” of others. I like what the Cistercian monk, Fr. Basil Pennington said, “we should pray this prayer saying ‘let me forgive others exactly as you have forgiven me'”. Now that gets a little too close to home. Just like I am forgiven? Really? Come on Father, come on Jesus, I am not that good, nor that holy.
Jesus is sitting in church and he gives the example of two slaves who owe their owner money, one 50 dollars, the other 500 dollars. And out of the blue, the owner forgive each debt. Jesus asks which would be more thankful and the host says the one who owed more. Then Jesus forgives the sins of the woman bathing his feet in tears and ointment and the other guests are furious. Do they hate forgiveness that much? I suspect that they feared losing control over the people that much, after all, that is why they killed Jesus.
You see friends, the lesson here is that we must be the ones to forgive sins. Yes, you heard it right, we forgive sins. That was Jesus’ point in this situation. We must individually forgive the sins of others. The forgiveness happened so very long ago, for all of us. We call it grace. We are the ones that must forgive because without it, we will never let go of those aches and pains others have seemingly caused us. We have to stop drinking the poison, we are called to forgive all sins.
TMM