Men's Rosary

FORGIVE – to cease to feel resentment against someone for an offense or wrong, to pardon someone.  (Websters dictionary)  How good are we at this?  There is much packed into this definition.  In ceasing to feel resentment we relinquish all negative feelings toward the person.  In pardoning we choose to excuse and absolve the person from the consequences of the action; we give up any claim of retribution or punishment for what they have done against us.  That is a pretty tall order for such a small word!   

Christ calls us to do just that.  He taught strongly on forgiveness and how it should have no limits.  “Pay attention to yourselves!  If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”  (Luke 17:3-4)  This seem counterintuitive with our “three strikes and you’re out” mentality.  It seems to be too easy to forgive once, but then the rest is on the person never to do it again.  And what if they do?  Do we forgive again, or do we withhold forgiveness and deliver the just punishment they deserve?  Even worse is the situation wherein we determine the offense is too grave to forgive so we withhold forgiveness all together.  This is a dangerous place to be in as far as our soul is concerned.  We are well warned about this in Scripture.  “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”  (Mark 11:25)  We are to forgive so we can be forgiven.  And Christ gave a perfect example for us, to the point of asking the Father to forgive those who crucified him due to their ignorance!  Speaking for myself, I stand in dire need of forgiveness from God, and I know that I need forgive.  I feel confident in assuming we all fall into this situation.  Then the question becomes, how well and to what degree do we forgive?  It is easy to say we forgive someone, but are we holding onto resentment?  As described in the definition, do we choose to excuse and absolve the person?  The degree in which we forgive will determine how we will be forgiven as was taught by Christ when he told the Apostles how to pray.  In the Our Father, we pray “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  How do we want God to forgive us?  We are called to heroic charity (love) through mercy.  Through mercy we will see salvation.  “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”  (Matthew 5:7)  I will share a story of heroic forgiveness, charity, and mercy.

Maria Teresa Goretti, now St. Maria Gorretti was an eleven-year-old girl in Italy, who refused sexual advances from one Allesandro Serenelli, who proceeded to try to rape her (unsuccessfully) as he stabbed her fourteen times.  She died from her injuries and with her dying breath said, “I forgive Allesandro Serenelli and want him to be in heaven with me someday.”  He went to prison for a thirty-year term and Maria visited him in dreams telling him she forgave him.  He had a conversion and became a model prisoner and was released three years early.  This is heroic forgiveness, charity, and mercy!  It gets even more incredible.  Maria’s mother, after Allesandro was released, was visited by him and he asked for her forgiveness.  She forgave him, saying that her daughter and God forgave, how could she not.  After forgiving him, she adopted him and took him into her home as her own son!  Allesandro went on to live a devout life and became a gardener, porter, and lay brother in a Franciscan monastery.  Look at what such forgiveness did!  Because of Maria’s forgiveness, it changed Allesandro’s life, it caused her mother to forgive and be merciful, and Allesandro went on to do much good.  The number of souls saved cannot be measured.  This is how we are called to forgive.  This is how we are called to love. 

Make no mistake, this is contrary to how the world thinks.  When we act in this manner, many around us will say that we are being naïve, that we owe those who harm us nothing.  We will be told it is best to move on as though they do not exist, erase them from our life and memory so we can heal.  The truth is if we do that we will not heal.  We will be chronically sick spiritually.  Maria and her mother functioned as God wants us to act.  They imitated Christ.  They followed the way of God.  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”  (Isaiah 55:8-9)  May we learn to forgive more, to love deeper and live mercifully.

“Forgiveness is an act of charity, since by forgiving our neighbor’s offenses, we remove a hindrance to the exercise of charity toward him.”  (St. Thomas Aquinas)