"Forgive." This is the word that leaped out at me, stuck in my mind, on which I meditated during my lectio on this week's Gospel reading. During my meditation, I did a kind of Examen. I tried to think about everyone against whom I hold a grudge. On the one hand, it's not a lot of people (less than 10). On the other hand, the bitterness and resentment I have toward some of those who came to mind still run pretty deep. This is one of the difficulties with forgiving: when I call to mind a wrong I have endured at the hands of another the scab is ripped off and the wound bleeds.
Through my personal and pastoral experience, I have come to realize that forgiveness is a process, a conversion if you will. By the grace of God, I have long since ceased being someone who seeks revenge. Frankly, I can't ever recall wishing something terrible would happen to someone else. Maybe this is because I have endured trauma and suffering myself to the point of not wishing it even on my worst enemy. The questions for me are: Can I really come to love a person who, at least in my view, has wronged me in a scarring way? Can I truly wish that person well and even do good to them? Tough questions.
It's important not to be glib about forgiveness. For example, I think of someone who has been raped and what the imperative to forgive might mean for that person vis-à-vis her/his rapist. While I am among those who do not think that a woman must die rather than be raped (a rape is in no way her fault), I find Saint Maria Goretti's example of forgiveness powerful in much the same way I find power in Saint Stephen's plea, which he made to God on behalf of those who were stoning him to death. In both cases, there was repentance and conversion: Alessandro Serenelli and Saul of Tarsus.
I've never believed that forgiving means forgetting. Nonetheless, it is sometimes said that when we repent God forgets. I really don't know if this is true. I doubt it. But I don't think God remembers for the purpose of holding a grudge against me. Generally, I think forgiving means no longer holding the wrong against the person who committed it. This is what makes forgiving a process or a choice I have to make over and over until it "takes," if it ever does. I know that if I forget the sins God has forgiven, I forget God's great mercy. I forget Christ.
Our first reading from Sirach imparts something we know empirically: anger and wrath are more destructive of my soul than they are of the person against whom I harbor anger and with whom I am committed to getting even. Echoing the Lord's Prayer, this passage expresses the impossibility of being unforgiving and yet expecting to be forgiven: "Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the LORD? Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself, can he seek pardon for his own sins? If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath, who will forgive his sins?" (Sirach 28:3-5).
Forgiving, I think, is one way we die and rise with Christ. Like dying, forgiving can be painful and scary. One who chooses to forgive often worries about justice. I mean, what kind of world would it be if everyone who did wrong was simply forgiven? It would be a bizarro world. It would be the Kingdom of God. I have long been an advocate of restorative justice. In my judgment, it is much better than the retributive justice we often seek. Personally, I don't see much difference between retributive justice and revenge. That said, the shape and form forgiveness takes depend very much on circumstances.
In one part of an on-going dispute concerning capital punishment, theologian David Bentley Hart points out that the New Testament "overwhelming" forbids "Christians to exact retributive justice" (see "Further Reflections on Capital Punishment (and on Edward Feser)"). Because the "Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion," those who worship and claim to follow him should strive to be that way too.
The words the inspired author of Matthew places on the lips of Jesus to forgive "seventy-seven times" means to forgive as many times as your brother (or sister) sins against you. It is interesting that in Matthew we encounter the same words used in the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures, known as the Septuagint, found in Genesis 4:24: "If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times." This leads Jewish commentator Aaron Gale to wonder if "Matthew's phrasing may contrast an ancient blood feud with the intimacy of Jesus's community" (The Jewish Annotated New Testament, "Matthew," 45).
Gale notes Matthew's possible allusion to Genesis only after stating rabbinical teaching: "All who act mercifully toward their fellows will be treated mercifully by Heaven, and all who do not act mercifully toward their fellow creatures will not be treated mercifully by Heaven" (Ibid.). That this is consistent in Jewish theology is partially borne out by our passage from Sirach.
Willingness to forgive does not seem to be humanity's default setting. It certainly isn't mine. Baptism, to stick with the metaphor, is supposed to reset us to our manufacturer's (i.e., Creator's) settings. Our participation in the Eucharist is our pledge to be changed, reset, converted.
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