Forgiveness
To withhold forgiveness is to take poison and expect the unforgiven to die. St. Augustine
Gregg’s Reflection
The first time I had a visceral experience of forgiveness was at Cursillo, a weekend retreat a couple of years after I was baptized. Of course, I had been forgiven many times by then, as anyone in a marriage understands. I remember a sermon Vernon Luckey, the Lutheran pastor who baptized me, preached about forgiveness one time. He talked about the baggage we each carry around with us from our past wounds and transgressions. “Forgiveness means putting down that luggage from our past and never picking it up again.”
One morning during that retreat, we were having worship at the edge of a lake at sunrise. With the sun’s rays coming through the trees and reflecting off the water, I felt the presence of Spirit. In that moment, I felt forgiveness wash over me, and I experienced ‘an incredible lightness of being.’ It was viscerally like putting down the luggage of my previous life and starting over again.
Like many people, I felt forgiveness of others was conditioned upon their showing some contriteness and seeking to be forgiven. Our father was a hard man. He lost his mother when he was about 10, and his father left the kids with their grandmother. His experiences of the depression and the war scarred him, and the family felt the brunt of his anger, impatience and perfectionism. “I give ulcers, I don’t get them,” he used to say.
My brother and I worked for him for fifteen years before he died. I carried resentment of my father for decades. He never admitted his mistakes, and never showed a bit of contriteness. Yet, what I discovered was that holding onto resentment was like acid in my gut. It did not hurt him at all, it just ate away at me. Five years before he died, I made a very conscious decision to forgive my father and let go of my resentment.
I never spoke to him about it, but I did notice our relationship improved over those last years. Forgiveness was cleansing to me, and took the poison out of our relationship.
Journaling Prompts
In what ways have you truly experienced forgiveness? What baggage do you need to set down and leave? Is there someone in your life who has harmed you and never shown contriteness that causes you to hold some resentment? What would it be like to let go and forgive that person, while still maintaining healthy boundaries that prevent further harm?
Scripture
You overlook people’s sins, so that they may repent. For you love all things that exist, for you would not have made anything if you hated it. How would anything have endured if you had not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by you have persevered? You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living. For your immortal spirit is in all things. Therefore you correct little by little those who trespass, you remind and warn them of the things through which they sin, so that they may be freed from wickedness and put their trust in you, O Lord.
Wisdom 11:23-12:2
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sins and will heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Matthew 6:14-15
And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.
Mark 11:25
You will know salvation through the mystery of forgiveness.
Luke 2:77
Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Luke 6:37
The one to whom little is forgiven loves little.
Luke 7:47
All the prophets testify about him that anyone who believes in him recieves forgiveness of sins through his name.
Acts 10:43
For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all.
Romans 11:32
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Ephesians 4:32
Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Colossians 3:13
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9
Ancient Writings
To withhold forgiveness is to take poison and expect the unforgiven to die.
St. Augustine
Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.
St. Augustine
For when God finds people in the same degree of love, then he judges them in the same way, regardless of whether they have sinned greatly or not at all. But those to whom more is forgiven, should have a greater love, as our Lord Jesus Christ said: 'They to whom more is forgiven must love more' (Luke 7:47).
Meister Eckhart, Selected Writings
Have a great love for those who contradict and fail to love you, for in this way love is begotten in a heart that has no love.
St. John of the Cross
Modern Writings
God is nothing but forgiveness. We too must practice forgiveness to be God’s children. In actual fact, not to forgive others is not to forgive ourselves. At the deepest level, we are everyone else. We can only enjoy the world of unconditional love with hearts that are completely open to everyone.
Thomas Keating, Manifesting God
We are called to confess to each other and forgive each other, and thus to discover the abundant mercy of God. But at the same time, we are so terribly afraid of being hurt more than we already are. This fear keeps us prisoners, even when the prison has no walls! I see better every day how radical Jesus’ message of love really is.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 8/29/20
Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 8/30/20
God’s forgiveness is unconditional; it comes from a heart that does not demand anything for itself, a heart that is completely empty of self-seeking. It is this divine forgiveness that I have to practice in my daily life. It demands of me that I step over that wounded part of my heart that feels hurt and wronged and that wants to stay in control and put a few conditions between me and the one whom I am asked to forgive.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 10/8/20
To forgive our enemies doesn’t lie within our power. That is a divine gift.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 4/1/21
A Forgiven Person Forgives. Maybe the reason it seems hard for me to forgive others is that I do not fully believe that I am a forgiven person. If I could fully accept the truth that I am forgiven and do not have to live in guilt or shame, I would really be free. By not forgiving, I chain myself to a desire to get even, thereby losing my freedom. A forgiven person forgives. This is what we proclaim when we pray “and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.” This lifelong struggle lies at the heart of the Christian life.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 10/25/21
This is the dance of intimacy: we ask one another for forgiveness as we confess that once again we didn’t do it right. We needn’t be surprised or punish ourselves for it though we all do. Darn it, I didn’t love right again! How can I miss the point so many times?
I don’t think getting it right teaches us vulnerability. It’s when we’re wrong that we are taught to be vulnerable. We finally realize we are falling ever-deeper into something that we can never live up to, a sustained vulnerability, a continual risk. It’s not a vulnerability and intimacy that we choose just now and then. Eventually, it becomes second nature to apologize, to admit we are wrong, to ask for forgiveness but not hate ourselves for it.
Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 2/23/22
Among the most powerful of human experiences is to give or to receive forgiveness. I am told that two-thirds of the teaching of Jesus is directly or indirectly about this mystery of forgiveness: God’s breaking of God’s own rules. That’s not surprising, because forgiveness is probably the only human action that reveals three goodnesses simultaneously!
When we forgive, we choose the goodness of the other over their faults, we experience God’s goodness flowing through ourselves, and we also experience our own goodness in a way that surprises us. That is an awesome coming together of power, both human and divine.
Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern, p. 155
When all is said and done, the gospel comes down to forgiveness. I’d say it’s the whole gospel. It’s the beginning, the middle, and the end. People who know how to forgive have known how good it feels to be forgiven, not when they deserved it, but precisely when they didn’t deserve it. “Forgive us as we forgive.” They’re the same movement. We need to know that we need mercy, we need understanding, and then we also need to know how to give it. Each flows with the energy of the other.
Only God knows all, and so God is the One who can forgive all. If we’re honest, none of us have lived the gospel. None of us have loved as we could love, or as we have been loved by God. And yet that very recognition that I have not yet lived love allows me to stand under the waterfall of infinite mercy. It’s only then that I know how to let mercy flow through me freely. That I receive it undeservedly allows me to give it undeservedly.
Richard Rohr, “Make Sure You Are in Need of Forgiveness,” homily, September 16, 2017.
If we don't get forgiveness, we're missing the whole mystery. We are still living in a world of meritocracy; of quid-pro-quo thinking, of performance and behavior that earns an award. Forgiveness is the great thawing of all logic, reason, and worthiness. It is a melting into the mystery of God as unearned love, unmerited grace, the humility and powerlessness of a Divine Lover.
Grace is certainly the one gift that must always be free, perfectly free, in order for it to work. Without forgiveness, there will be no future. The only way out of the present justified hatreds of the world is Grace.
Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern, p. 162
We are able to forgive because we are able to recognize our shared humanity. We are able to recognize that we are all fragile, vulnerable, flawed human beings capable of thoughtlessness and cruelty. We also recognize that no one is born evil and that we are all more than the worst thing we have done in our lives. A human life is a great mixture of goodness, beauty, cruelty, heartbreak, indifference, love, and so much more. All of us share the core qualities of our human nature, and so sometimes we are generous and sometimes selfish. Sometimes we are thoughtful and other times thoughtless, sometimes we are kind and sometimes cruel. This is not a belief. This is a fact.
Desmond Tutu and Mpho A. Tutu, The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World, p. 125