Forgiveness – path to holiness
I REMEMBER hearing a homily explaining Catholic faith as built on three connections: our connection with God, with ourselves, and with our fellow humans. This is evident in the commandments to love: “Love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength,” and to “Love our neighbour as we love ourselves’ (Mark 12: 30-31). How can we fulfil this law of love if this intimate connection with ourselves, our neighbours and our God is broken? Perhaps that is why St John asked us, ‘How can we love God whom we do not see if we do not love our brother whom we see?’
PUTTING IT INTO PRACTISE
The Lord’s Prayer as a universal prayer, gives us opportunity to put this commandment to love into practise. Many a reflection on this prayer focuses on the phrase “forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Forgiving those who offend us is important to all who desire God’s forgiveness. But it is a struggle to practise, even when we know that our own forgiveness from God depends on our willingness to forgive.
We know that those who offend us are imperfect just as we are imperfect; yet we struggle to look past the wrong done to us by others. When we fail to forgive, we imprison the offender in our heart; by not forgiving, we constantly stir the wound again and again, without allowing healing to take place. We disrupt the inner connections and thus the harmony of life; we create blockages, negatively affecting our holistic wellbeing. We become resentful; we are hurt, and we remain in pain and torment, not realising we are hurting ourselves by not allowing the healing process within.
Holiness is wholeness. Should we not then take the high road and work to find it in ourselves to forgive just as God finds it in Himself to forgive us, even repeatedly? It is not an easy feat to forgive someone, because ‘to err is human, but to forgive is divine.’ But the benefit of forgiving the offender is worth the price for holiness. It is the new beginning we desperately need, for ourselves, and for our country.