Its emphasis on forgiveness is something that I think separates Christianity from other religions. This, along with tolerance and love, ensures that Christianity won’t destroy itself through constant destructive “inquisition” type campaigns against other Christian sects (Mark 9:39) and accusing them of not being true to “the faith” and killing them for their “heresy” as they might in other religions. The fact that there is a central leadership in Rome which serves as a memory for Christianity ensures that though these things once occurred in the past, we are not doomed to repeat them in the future. In some other religions, this sectarian type violence continues to this day.
Forgiveness is not only of benefit to the offender, but of more benefit to the offended proffering the forgiveness. In fact, though counterintuitive, it turns out that the most benefit, to include measurable physical benefits, is to the offended when he or she forgives.[1] I think this is the most powerful lesson that Jesus Christ taught us. It benefits have been reemphasized by modern day psychologist and psychoanalyst. His life ended with death on a cross to forgive all past, present and future sins of which any man who comes to Him to seek forgiveness for. He said if your brother sins against you forgive him not once or seven times but “seventy times seven times” (Matt 18:22).
This is not to say that the forgiven does not also benefit. We see the possible results to the forgiven in the life of St. Maria Goretti. Maria Teresa Goretti, the third of six children, was sewing for her mother when, after breaking into her room, was approached by Alessandro Serenelli with an unwholesome proposition. He threatened to kill her if she did not submit. When she refused rather than sacrifice her chastity, he stabbed her 11 times. When she tried crawling to get help he stabbed her three more times then fled. She forgave him on her death bed. He later was forgiven by her mother and learned of Maria Goretti’s death bed forgiveness of him. He repented and spent the rest of his life, after serving 27 years in prison, since he was a minor at the time of the offense, as a brother serving as the receptionist to a monastery. He lived to attend the beatification of St. Maria Goretti and died a good man.[2]
Forgiveness is thought to be such a special event that the Roman Catholic tradition has a sacrament[3] called confession or penance, based on the Bible verse of John 20:23 to formally transmit God’s forgiveness of a person’s sins. The effect of telling your problems and shortcomings to another person and wishing to change has a healing effect that can manifest itself physically, mentally and emotionally. Though confession/penance has been around for 2000 years in the Catholic Church only in the last 200 years has its effects been truly investigated in the sciences of psychoanalysis, psychology and psychiatry.[4]
One well-known case where we can see the evil that can result from not forgiving someone and the subsequent good forgiveness can bring is that of Jennifer Thompson. Thompson was raped when she was a young lady and mistakenly picked the wrong man, Ronald Cotton, from a line up. Cotton served 11 years in prison before DNA testing finally found the real rapist, Bobby Poole. Poole was already imprisoned when Cotton was acquitted. Cotton found it in himself to forgive Thompson for wrongly accusing him. Although Thompson tried to visit Poole in prison for the purpose of forgiving him face to face, he refused to see her before he eventually died of cancer while still serving his sentence.[5] We should all remember that the Lord says vengeance is His. “Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place unto wrath, for it is written: ‘Revenge is mine; I will repay’ saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19).
If we are hurt or lose trust in someone close to us, is it better to never trust again or to trust completely again, and in doing so risk getting hurt so completely again? I think it is best to trust completely once you are as sure as you can be about a person. Pray for guidance and trust your instincts. Life is too short not to trust at least one person in your life. I once was upset with my best friend in college for months, for a reason I can no longer even remember. When I decided to forgive him, it felt great and we have remained friends to this day. This incident taught me the blessing of forgiveness which I have never forgotten and which has helped me live, in my opinion, one of the happiest lives a man could live. The greatest gift one can get from God is the grace to be able to forgive. It frees a man or woman to become the happiest person they can be. Through this grace, they receive a slice of heaven on earth.
When people choose to hate or choose to take revenge, which is, in essence, choosing not to forgive, a myriad of physical, emotional, and mental problems (not to mention spiritual) arise.[6] Their blood pressure rises, their stress level climbs, they have symptoms of depression, they begin to have a lower quality of life due to health issues and they die earlier. Is it a stretch to think that with these kinds of effects on your body, that your soul (where your consciousness resides now and will for the rest of eternity) is not also being destroyed by choosing not to forgive?
This rather lengthy quote, from David Augsburger’s “The Freedom of Forgiveness: Seventy times Seven” 32-37 pages (copyright 1970 by the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago) is a concise summary of how we must forgive to prevent the devil from hurting us grievously and the types of bitterness that can cause that damage. Unforgiveness may hurt us, with a long road back to happiness or possibly destroy us, losing our happiness and finding it has drifted beyond our reach for all eternity.
Sure, I’ll forgive that man, when I’m good and ready,” the wife said as we sat around the kitchen table.
. . .
The man in question sat, eyes downcast, speechless before her anger.
“If you only knew the misery he’s caused me, you’d understand why I’m not going to knuckle under when he says “sorry for the first time,” she continued. “sure I’ll forgive him, but not until he’s paid for a bit of the dirt he’s dragged us through.”
. . .
Recalling the day a week before when she and her daughter drove into town to trace down and threaten the woman – “ the other woman,” as the pulp magazines always put it.
. . .
Years passed; the other woman had married and moved out of his world. Slowly, bitterly he paid, repaid and over paid for all he’d done. At last, one night when she herself was in deep trouble, lonely and bitter, she offered her forgiveness. Too late.
“You can keep your phony forgiving,” he told her. “I don’t need any of it now. I’ve paid through the nose for what I’ve done. Who needs forgiveness when he’s already paid?”
Who indeed? Forgiveness is a free gift of love or it is nothing of value. It is never a receipt for payment in full. It’s and undeserved pardon. An unwarranted release.
When it’s postponed until the last angry installment is collected, complete with bitter interest, it’s pure vengeance.
If you hold back forgiveness until the offender deserves it, forget it! That’s not forgiveness!
Forgive immediately!
Forgive when the first hurt is felt!
The man who follows Christ in life hurries to forgive. Quickly. Unhesitatingly. Immediately!
Knowing the value of time, he cannot afford to let it slip by in futile pain.
He knows it is cheaper to pardon than to resent. The high cost of anger, the extravagant expense of hatred and the unreasonable interest on grudges make resentment out of the question!
He forgives before the sting has begun to swell. Before the mole hill mushrooms into a mountain. Before bitterness like and infection – or rigor mortis – sets in!
What a strange thing bitterness is!
It breaks on us when we need it least, when we’re down and in desperate need of all our freedom, ability and energy to get back up!
And what strange things bitterness can do to us. It slowly sets, like a permanent plaster cast, perhaps protecting the wearer from further pain but ultimately holding him rigid in frozen animation. His feelings and responses have turned to concrete, and, like concrete, they’re all mixed up and firmly set.
Bitterness is paralysis.
A young man, falsely accused, condemned and penalized by his high school principal, turns sullen, angry, bitter.
A girl, betrayed by a fellow she trusted, is forced, becomes pregnant, then turns bitter and withdrawn. Her faith in all humanity ends. She cannot forgive.
A woman, deserted by her husband, left to be both mother and father to their two sons, turns angry at life – at the whole universe. Her faith in God and everything good has ended. She did not forgive.
Bitterness is such a potent paralysis of mind, soul and spirit that it can freeze our reason, emotions and all our responses.
So why do we accept bitter feelings? Why do we nourish acidic emotions and slowly allow them to eat away our attitudes, motives and even our spirits? The bitters come in so many varieties.
There’s the I’ve-been-used-and-abused brand of bitterness that lets us stew in our own anger juices when we have no chance to vent these hostilities on the persons who’ve hurt us. So we take it out on ourselves.
Or there’s the everyone’s-against-me-nobody-cares kind of bitterness that grows into a full-blown martyr complex. Complete with self-pity and all that.
Or it may be the I’m-being-neglected-forgotten-and-over-looked routine of the housewife who’s glowingly bitter over being trapped in the house all day long with whining toddlers, endless chores and a husband “out all day in a fascinating world.”
Or it may be the blind curse-it-all-I’d-rather-be-dead bitterness that follows tragedy, grief or failure, if we withdraw into ourselves in desperate despair.
We live in a world infested with all these and many more strains of bitterness, and unless we are highly resistant, we too will be infected. Again and again.
When it affects our emotions, love may turn to instant hate. And what’s worse, both love and hate can soon sour to apathy, indifference and cold neutrality. Bitterness cuts the nerve to our emotions. They go dead – like paralysis.
When it finally affects mind and reason, our attitudes turn cynical, uncaring, critical and caustic. Where we once ventured to place faith in others, now we trust no one. Optimism darkens to pessimism. Faith grays to doubt.
We withdraw, turtlelike, into our protective shells of bitter distrust. We’ve been burned once – and once burned we become twice shy.
Letting bitterness seal us in can be just and excuse for acting irresponsibly. Being responsible in any painful situation usually calls for us to accept a bit of the blame for the way things are. But being bitter about it can save all that. We can scapegoat it all to others. We may even feel justified in blaming God for all our troubles and difficulties. (Remember? That was one of the first sins. Man’s first impulse when in his first trouble. Blame God. Adam blamed the woman first – and then the Lord.)
What is the key to finding release from the paralyzing powers of bitterness? Turn your eyes outward. Stop thinking about yourself. Don’t tolerate those thoughts of self-pity. Don’t permit those angry thoughts of self defense to master you.
Doesn’t our bitterness spring from our self-centeredness?
What a helpless, hopeless cycle of feelings bitterness brings. It carries us around and around the same senseless circle. Around and around ourselves. Like a child learning to ride a bicycle, knowing how to ride but not how to stop we pedal on and on, afraid to quit, yet wishing desperately for someone to come and take the bars, break our circle and let us off.
Only forgiveness can do that for us. Only forgiveness can intercept our endless orbiting around ourselves and set us free.
Here’s how the Bible describes it.
Let there be no more [bitterness], no more anger or temper no more violent self-assertiveness, no more slander and no more malicious remarks. Be kind to each other; be understanding. Be ready to forgive others as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you (Eph 4:31-32, Phillips).
Only the immediate kind of forgiveness God showed us in Jesus Christ can sweeten our bitterness and bring tender hearted healing. It can even rub out “the root of bitterness” down in our personalities so that it will never again spring up and grow (see Heb 12:15).
Forgive immediately. Not just because it’s the safest for your own selfhood and sanity, but for the deeper reason – it is the way of Christ.
Christ’s way was the way of giving forgiveness even before asked, and even when it was not or never would be asked by the other.
While his enemies were driving spikes through His hands, again and again, with every blow, He probably prayed, “Father forgive them.” That’s forgiveness. Unasked, undeserved, yet freely given.
To think that we needn’t forgive until we are asked is a myth to be punctured!
Forgive immediately! And then – forgive continually.
Live your forgiveness as a way of life. Constantly and consistently.
To live forgiveness is to give wholehearted acceptance to others. There is no forgiveness without genuine acceptance of the other person as he is.
But it is more than a shallow acceptance which is nothing more than tolerance.
“Open your hearts to one another as Christ has opened his heart to you,” Paul wrote to the Romans (Ro 15:7, Phillips). To do this is to accept another in a way which takes real responsibility for the other. It is an accepting love which gets its sleeves rolled up and its hands dirty in helping, serving, lifting and changing others’ lives into the full freedom of forgiveness – God’s forgiveness and man’s.
Forgiveness is not leaving a person with the burden of something to live down”; it is offering him someone to live with! A friend like you.
But the greatest test of continual forgiveness is the daily kind of forgiving love which gives and takes, freely accepting the bruises and hurts of living. No matter how difficult the blows life deals us.
I have witnessed it personally where a person would rather be right and unforgiving and lose friends, and be estranged and alienated from their family than to forgive be happy, and enjoy life. I can only hope people like this will change their ways because, not only does it hurt children, spouses, and friends but it hurts the person not forgiving more than anything. These people, like the devil, have chosen to be in control and be miserable and depressed in hell rather than to forgive and live in happiness in the service of God. I do not think I will ever understand why one would choose controlling their environment and those around them to being happy. Through any unfortunate turn of events, the ones they despised most could instantly become their caretakers. These people may be bitter and reluctant as caretakers because of how they were mistreated. Though mistreated, those that do become their brother’s caretakers should never be bitter but thankful that they were not the ones with the misfortune, and treat their brother with the kindness they would desire to be treated with. It was once said that not forgiving someone is like eating rat poison and waiting for the rat to die. It slowly kills the one who hates and does not forgive and most times does little to hurt the unforgiven.
David Augsburger’s “The Freedom of Forgiveness: Seventy times Seven” (copyright 1970 by the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago) I think is an excellent book on forgiveness that everyone that might be holding a grudge against someone else should read.
[1] Robert D. Enright, “Forgiveness is a Choice: A step-by-Step Process for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope,” American Psychological Association (APA), 2001
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Serenelli
[3] defined as a rite to have been established by Jesus which brings a special enriching effect of love and mercy from God that frees us or helps keep us free from sin called grace, to those participating in the sacrament.
[4] Pardon and Peace by Alfred Wilson, Roman Catholic Books, 1949
[5] http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~malavet/evidence/notes/thompson_cotton.htm
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 