Forgiveness

Why do we have such a hard time with forgiveness? Why do we find it easier to hold a grudge, to cut someone out, to continue to fester anger and annoyance for even a minor slight? And if we can’t forgive a minor insult, how do we forgive a major event?

I think the problem isn’t really a matter of forgiveness: it’s a matter of understanding what forgiveness is – and what it isn’t.

According to the website of the American Psychological Association, “Forgiveness involves willfully putting aside feelings of resentment toward someone who has committed a wrong, been unfair or hurtful, or otherwise harmed you in some way. Forgiveness is not merely accepting what happened or ceasing to be angry. Rather, it involves a voluntary transformation of your feelings, attitudes, and behavior, so that you are no longer dominated by resentment and can express compassion, generosity, or the like toward the person who wronged you.”

Let’s break that down, starting with the first sentence. To willfully put aside feelings means that we have to make a decision to turn from resentment. But simply making that decision isn’t enough; we then have to act on it. Any decision requires an action. If I decide I want scrambled eggs for breakfast, I need to take an action to make that happen. It might mean I’m going out for breakfast; it might mean I’m cooking breakfast for myself. But the simple act of deciding I want scrambled eggs does not mean they magically manifest on my kitchen table. I have to take action to make my decision a reality.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean you come to agreement with what happened. Someone harmed you in some way, be it physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, or any other way. Even if you forgive them totally, that harm still happened. Forgiveness doesn’t mean everything just goes back to the way it was before. It often can’t, especially if the issue resulted in a major life change. Accepting it, in this sense, means that you acknowledging that it happened. The hurtful actions were taken, the hurtful words were spoken. It happened, and in many cases, the results of the actions or words will continue. But by accepting what happened, acknowledging that as the reality, you can start to let go of your anger.

Imagine you are in a minor traffic accident which results in some small damage which will cost a small, easily affordable amount to repair. Is your reaction to the accident and expense different if it were caused by someone carelessly backing into your parked vehicle than if you backed into a tree? Is your anger justifiable or it is out of proportion to the event itself?

You might feel that your anger is justifiable because we’re not really talking about a minor traffic accident. But no matter how huge the real issue is, in order for you to recover and be able to forgive, you have to put it in perspective: no matter how hurtful the instance was, it happened, and you now live in the reality in which it has happened. You can’t go back in time; you have to live in the reality of now, and to do that fully, you have to accept that it happened. Again, there is a decision to be made and an action to be taken:  the decision to accept that it happened, and the action to cease to let your hurt and anger overcome you emotionally.

And that’s the entirety of the last sentence in a nutshell: move forward. That’s a  hard step, To accomplish a “voluntary transformation of your feelings, attitudes, and behavior” js to make a decision to let it go.

Anger and resentment can become emotional addictions. Like any other addiction, if you don’t let it go, it consumes you. You become dominated by resentment. And that pours out not only to the person who wronged you but also to everyone else in your life – especially yourself.

People think that AA’s twelve steps are only for alcoholics, but they have been adapted for other addictions as well. Personally, I think they are very useful whenever I find myself obsessing over something. The first three steps, very simply put, are honesty, hope, and faith.

Honesty, in admitting that we are powerless over some aspect of our life, in this case the resentment that keeps us from being willing to forgive.

Hope, in that we can open our hearts and mind through God’s grace.

Faith, that by making the decision to follow God’s will, we will be able to let go of resentment and reach forgiveness.

Jesus taught that we are forgiven in the same way we forgive. He never said it was easy. But we don’t gain heaven without doing the work to get there.

But what about the flip side of the argument: does our forgiveness have an effect on the person we are forgiving, and, more specifically, is our forgiveness of them necessary for them to receive graces from God? I don’t think the answer to that is as clear cut. There are definitely benefits to ourselves for forgiving others. But do they also need our forgiveness to be forgiven by God?

There’s a temptation to say yes, of course; it must be that they cannot be forgiven if I do not forgive them, But isn’t that terribly self-centered? Why would my forgiveness matter?

It matters, of course, to the extent that I still have a continuing relationship with the person. If my anger is against someone I will never see again, my anger is not likely to have any effect on them. But if it is someone who is still part of my life, however tangentially, any residual anger would have the potential to make meetings fraught with anxiety. But, again, that is more about the effect on me than on them.

However, after considerable reflection, I totally reject the idea that my failure to forgive someone has any effect on whether or not God forgives them. It goes against logic: someone might not even know that I am harboring a grudge over something that happened years ago, so how could they do anything to proactively seek my forgiveness?

But more importantly, it seems to me to be theologically unsound. My actions or feelings about someone cannot influence God’s actions or feelings about that person. Each of us answers to God for our own sins and shortcomings, not those of others.

I think it was Father Timothy who recently said that parents who do not bring their children to Mass bear the guilt of two sins, one for their own missing of Mass, and one for the child’s missing of Mass, because the child could not have brought themselves to Mass. Does that mean either parent or child need forgive the other for the failure to go to Mass?

If we say God cannot forgive or heal someone until we forgive that person, aren’t we putting a limit on God?

For example, I firmly believe that Adolph Hitler is in Hell. I don’t think there is any path he could have taken to gain forgiveness from God.

But can I say that I know for a fact that he is in hell? Of course not. As soon as I claim that, I am limiting God’s mercy; I am limiting God’s acceptance of our true repentance; I am stating that God can only act in ways that I can understand and explain.

And if I say God cannot have forgiven Hitler because Hitler’s many victims did not forgive Hitler, I am again setting limits on God’s mercy.

And any time I set any limit on God, I am putting myself and my will in His way.

So, this very long winded non-answer ends in an impasse.

This last part is addressed to one specific person, but I am including it in case it helps others, too.

You are fortunate in that you receive personal revelation from God. In your specific circumstances, might God be stating He needs you to forgive before He can? Yes. Maybe the amount of pain you have is so severe that it does interfere with the balance of the universe. Maybe you are one of His most favored children, and He is withholding forgiveness because your pain saddens Him.

Theologically, I am on firm ground in stating our forgiveness of someone is not needed for God to forgive that person, but if we withhold forgiveness, we may expect God to withhold His forgiveness of us.

But you’re getting a message that you need to forgive. And you have a proven track record of understanding the messages you are given. The only logical conclusion is that your forgiveness is necessary for some reason hidden to us.

(And yes, the part about backing into a tree really did happen, on a very dark country road in the Poconos one night, backing out of my neighbor’s driveway. I was just happy to know that the tree wasn’t planning on suing me; it was expensive enough to fix my back bumper.)