The Spiritualilty of Forgiveness, Part 3
A monastic conference published in The Oblate in three parts.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Attitudes and Practices That Lead to Forgiveness
It is easy to talk about forgiveness
but much harder to live it.
Robert Enright defines forgiveness as
"giving up the resentment to which you are entitled
and offering to the person who hurt you
a positive attitude to which they are not entitled."
This
is an operational definition
but it avoids four common myths about forgiveness.
Myths such as "forgiving is the same as excusing."
Or forgiving is the same as forgetting.
Or forgiving is letting someone off the hook.
Or forgiving makes one weak. No spine, no backbone.
There are a number of important steps on the path to forgiveness:
1) We need to face up to anger, shame, hurt or harm.
We may feel depressed and not understand why
until we confront and admit the reasons.
This is difficult to do,
which is why human beings are so adept at denial.
2) We need to recognize the source of our hurt,
the person who hurt us and the particular injury.
We can't forgive someone just because we don't like him or her.
3) We need to choose to forgive.
Though there is reason for anger or revenge,
we are deciding not to act on these.
We can make this choice for less than stellar reasons.
We may decide not to be furious with someone
simply because we need to get work done.
Or we may act out of a motive of faith in Jesus and try to follow his path.
4) We need to find a new way to think about the person who wronged us.
When we stop to think about it, we usually find the other person,
despite what he or she did, is not evil incarnate, but a vulnerable,
possibly hurting human being trying to cope with life like the rest of us.
And finally,
5) We can try to walk in the shoes of the other person.
"What was it like for this person,
as best as you are able to discern, being him or herself?
Maybe this other person was suffering too.
Not that this is an excuse,
but it might put a different complexion on the injury to us.
Outlining certain steps may suggest that the process is always the same.
In fact, it may well be different in each case, depending on circumstance.
Enright himself always adds, "Don't give up! No one said this would be easy."
When we can let go of the anger and hurt,
much of the giving comes back to us in the form of a deep inner peace,
in the diminishment of anxiety and depression,
and an increase of hope and of self-esteem.
In contrast to other forms of therapy,
where a "washout effect occurs,"
that is, where the effects of the therapy wear off,
after forgiving,
people usually maintain their emotional health
and a willingness to forgive in the future.
It is truly a transformative process in which the lessons learned
are integrated into a new sense of self.
Forgiveness is one of the most difficult
and rewarding dimensions of the reign of God.
To a large extent,
it depends on our own sense of being a forgiven man or a forgiven woman.
In his Rule, Benedict is trying to describe the conditions
for community living in peace.
Benedictine Pax is a conviction about what is possible for graced human beings.
So in the Instruments of Good Works Benedict
articulates a number of practices that lay the foundation for forgiveness:
"You are not to act in anger, or to nurse a grudge."
"Never give a hollow greeting of peace..."
"Do not repay one bad turn with another."
"Harbor neither hatred nor jealousy of anyone. Do nothing out of envy."
"Do not love quarreling, shun arrogance."
"Pray for your enemies out of love for Christ."
"If you have a dispute with someone,
make peace with him before the sun goes down."
Finally, in Ch.13:12-13, Benedict notes that the Our Father is to be spoken by the superior
for all to hear, "because thorns
of contention are likely to spring up.
Thus warned by the pledge they make to one another in the very words of this prayer:
Forgive us as we forgive, they may cleanse themselves of this
kind of vice."
I would like to close this presentation
with a quote from Dimensions of Forgiveness.
"Most fundamentally...forgiveness is not so much a word spoken,
an action performed,
or a feeling felt,
as it is an embodied way of life in an every-deepening friendship
with the Triune God and with others."5
As such, a Christian account of forgiveness
ought not simply or even primarily be focused on the absolution of guilt;
rather, it ought to be focused on the reconciliation of brokenness,
the restoration of communion —
with God, with one another, and with the whole Creation.
Indeed, because of the pervasiveness of sin and evil,
Christian forgiveness must be at once an expression of a commitment to a way of life,
the cruciform life of holiness
in which we seek to "unlearn" sin
and learn the ways of God,
and a means of seeking reconciliation in the midst of particular sins,
specific instances of brokenness.
Further, forgiveness must be embodied
in specific habits and practices of Christian life.
Learning to embody forgiveness involves our commitment
to the cultivation of specific habits and practices.
John Paul II says in his message for World Peace Day:
" I would reaffirm that forgiveness inhabits people's hearts
before it becomes a social reality." 6
Only to the degree that an ethics and a culture of forgiveness prevail
can we hope for a "politics" of forgiveness,
expressed in society's attitudes and laws,
so that through them justice takes on more human character.
Forgiveness is above all a personal choice,
a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct
to pay back evil with evil.
The measure of such a decision
is the love of God,
who draws us to himself in spite of our sin.
It has its perfect exemplar in the forgiveness of Christ,
who on the cross prayed:
"Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Forgiveness, therefore, as a fully human act,
is above all a personal initiative.
But individuals are essentially social beings,
situated within a pattern of relationships through which
they express themselves in ways both good and bad.
Consequently, society, too, is absolutely in need of forgiveness.
Families, groups, societies, states, and the international community
itself need forgiveness in order to renew ties that have been sundered,
go beyond sterile situations of mutual condemnation
and overcome the temptation to discriminate against others without appeal.
The ability to forgive lies at the very basis
of the idea of a future society marked by justice and solidarity.
No peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness.
Some Resources on Forgiveness
Doris Donnelly, Learning to Forgive (New York: McMillan Publishing, 1979).
Raymond G. Helmick and Rodney L. Petersen, ed., Forgiveness and Reconciliation (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2001).
Michael Henderson, Forgiveness: Breaking the Chain of Hate (Wilsonville, OR: BookPartners, Inc., 1999).
Dennis Linn et al., Don't Forgive Too Soon: Extending the Two Hands That Heal (New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1997).
William A. Meninger, The Process of Forgiveness (New York: Continuum, 1996).
Joan Mueller, Is Forgiveness Possible? (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998).
Everett L. Worthington, Dimensions of Forgiveness: Psychological Research and Theological Perspectives (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 1998).
Abbot John Klassen, OSB
September, 2002
|
