Q&A with Fr John Flader. This week: The meaning of forgiveness.
Question: I have always had a problem understanding what we really mean by forgiveness. Some time ago a relative was very cruel to my parents and, even though I think I have forgiven them, I still feel angry whenever I think about it. How do I know if my forgiveness is genuine?
By Fr John Flader
As with many questions I am asked, this is one of those very frequent ones. Let us begin by seeing what Our Lord had to say about forgiveness. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gave us the Our Father, in which he taught us to say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” He seems to be saying that we must first forgive those who have hurt us if we are to ask God to forgive us our sins.
Immediately after the Our Father, Jesus went on to clarify this very point: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Mt 6:14-15).
These are strong words and a reminder that forgiveness of others is essential if we expect God to forgive us.
To exemplify this teaching, Jesus gave us the parable of the servant who owed his master 10,000 talents, an enormous sum of money, and when he pleaded to be given time to pay, the master forgave him the whole debt. But even after that the servant was unwilling to show mercy to a fellow servant who owed him only 100 denarii, a much smaller amount.
In anger, the master ordered the first servant to be put in jail until he paid the whole amount. Jesus concluded: “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart” (Mt 18:23-35).
In other words, no matter how much someone may have offended us, it is nothing compared with how much we have offended God. If our merciful Father has forgiven us our great offences against Him, we should be ready to forgive our neighbour their much smaller offences against us.
And we must be ready to forgive our neighbour not once or twice but always. We recall how when Peter asked Jesus how often he should forgive his brother, if as many as seven times, Jesus answered: “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22). In other words, we must be ready to forgive our neighbour always, no matter how many times he offends us. So forgiveness is essential. But what does it mean to forgive? In simple terms, we could say that to forgive someone is to tell God, and ideally them too, that we don’t hold anything against them, that we wish them well, not harm, that we love them, that we pray for them.
Forgiveness is an act of the will, relieving the other person of any debt against us. It is not a feeling of kindness towards the person. When we think of what they have done, we will probably feel angry, as you say, for quite some time. This is not a sign that we have not forgiven, but simply a natural response of our sense appetite, or feelings.
On the other hand, we should try to reject quickly any thoughts of the offence the person has committed against us, since these thoughts can reopen the wound and prolong the hard feelings. The sooner we get over reminding ourselves of the offence, the better. They say “forgive and forget”. But while we can always forgive, it is not easy to forget, nor is forgetting necessary for our forgiveness to be genuine. At the same time, it is also true that the less we think about the offence, the more quickly we will forget it.
And since forgiving can sometimes be difficult, we should ask God for the grace to forgive our neighbour from our heart. This is a grace he will surely grant us. Pope Benedict XVI, in his Wednesday audience on 16 September 2009, spoke of how Symeon the New Theologian, an 11th century monk, felt in himself an intense love for people who had tried to harm him, and he knew that this love could come only from God.
The Pope added, “Only divine love makes us open our hearts to others and makes us sensitive to their needs, making us regard everyone as brothers and sisters and inviting us to respond with love to hatred, and with forgiveness to offence.”