Jim McManus
(The theme of forgiveness often occupies us. The following text is quoted with the kind permission of the Carmelite Publishing House from the author's book Real Self-Esteem, which will be published by this publishing house soon.)
The Decision to Forgive
Forgiveness heals and enriches us. When we let go of all grievances, anger, and bitterness, we free ourselves from the tension and stress that harm our bodies, poison our minds and relationships with others, and rob us of peace and the ability to rejoice. To forgive and to let oneself be forgiven is a “healthy choice.” But forgiveness offers much more than therapeutic benefits on a medical and psychological level.
In fact, the will to forgive and the decision to forgive—or the decision to reject these options—is always a profoundly spiritual decision. It is a decision about whether we will live our lives according to constructive and creative Divine Word or in the emptiness and hatred of the destructive word.
No one imposes forgiveness upon us; it is a choice, a change in our hearts and reactions. A gift that is freely offered to those who do not deserve it. By forgiving, we give up the right to be angry or resentful for the injury we have unjustly suffered. By making this choice, we open our lives to compassion, generosity, and love. From this perspective, forgiveness is a spiritual grace. It is something that all the great religions have long understood: Confucians, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and others. The decision to forgive is a commitment to a new way of life.
The Christian Concept of Forgiveness
Forgiveness is the very heart of the Christian gospel. Through this amazing message, Christ tells us that God has forgiven us for all the wrongs we have committed. God’s forgiveness does not depend on our willingness to accept it or on our remorse. It is here for all time, embodied in Christ. But as long as we are not willing to realize and accept God’s forgiveness, we will not experience it. When we accept God’s forgiveness, our lives are transformed. We cannot accept it without being changed: we begin to live a life of “forgiveness,” a life filled with the Holy Spirit. However, we cannot accept life in forgiveness until we ourselves forgive. When we are filled with God’s love and God’s Spirit, we are inclined to give to others what we have received ourselves: unconditional forgiveness. Forgiveness is an act of the Spirit. Christ’s forgiveness comes to us in the Spirit, and so does our forgiveness of others. St. Paul says: “Since the Spirit is our life, let us also walk by the Spirit!” (Gal 5:25.)
Jesus calls us to: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt 5:44). Forgiveness never ends: we have to forgive even “seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22). As Gregory Jones says in his excellent study:
Those whom Jesus has forgiven are called to embody this forgiveness in a new life, the expression of which is fellowship with Jesus and his disciples. Forgiveness calls believers to a repentant life in which they strive to reshape their relationships with others based on the service of a holy heart and life.1
Forgiveness is therefore an important theological concept. It includes what God has done for us sinners through Christ and what penitent sinners, empowered by the Spirit, offer to those who sin against them. Before his ascension, Jesus said to his disciples: “Thus it is written: the Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Lk 24:46–47). Forgiveness, God’s forgiveness for us, is a gift of salvation. As Gregory Jones says:
Christian forgiveness simultaneously commits to a new life, a life of the cross and holiness, in which we strive to “unlearn” sin and adhere to God’s ways. At the same time, it is a way of seeking reconciliation in the midst of specific sins, specific cases of human brokenness and imperfection. In a broader context, forgiveness is the way in which God’s love leads us to reconciliation in the face of sin.2
The Essence of Forgiveness
True forgiveness—in us and to us—often comes slowly and is difficult to accept. However, our mistaken ideas about forgiveness make the situation even more challenging. Therefore, it will surely be beneficial to clearly establish what forgiveness is and what it is not.
Forgiveness is not merely a moral or Christian obligation imposed externally for the good of those who are forgiven. Rather, it is our inalienable human right: our inalienable right to be freed from pain and sorrow, hatred and anger, to rid ourselves of suffering. We are not obligated to carry this burden for the rest of our lives just because someone hurt us. The grace of forgiveness brings healing and wholeness to those who forgive. We have every right to such healing. No one should be allowed to deprive us of it. If someone has hurt us, we have the right not to let that hurt poison our entire lives.
Forgiveness does not absolve the offender of their guilt. It only allows the wounded person to free themselves from anger and bitterness. It liberates the wounded person and returns them to the path of a whole and fulfilling life.
Forgiveness does not mean we excuse evil or pretend that it is not that bad. True forgiveness names evil and honestly and resolutely labels it, whereas excusing evil redefines it and pretends it was acceptable.
Forgiveness does not excuse the perpetrator of evil. When we excuse, we acknowledge that the person had an excuse, and their act is therefore excusable. If the action of the person is excusable, then there is nothing to forgive. Forgiveness is the opposite of excusing. It clearly states that what a certain person did was wrong and that there is no excuse for it. The clearest way to let someone know that they have wronged us is to say that we forgive them. In fact, we say, “There is no excuse for that.”
Forgiveness does not mean tolerating evil. On the contrary, it simply says: “What you did is wrong and hurtful, and I do not accept it. I refuse to be your victim.”
Forgiveness does not mean forgetting. “Forgive and forget” is not a wise moral principle or life goal. A wiser principle is “forgive and do not forget,” but remember in a new way. We cannot forget the pain, but forgiveness helps us to remember it without resentment and bitterness. Forgiveness allows us to remember in a constructive way. We will never forget the painful experience, but we will keep learning from it. I learn something about my own vulnerability, unrealistic expectations, or my tendencies to take offense, however much the other person did not intend to offend me.
Forgiveness is not reconciliation. Reconciliation occurs between you and the person who has harmed you. Forgiveness takes place within you and you offer it to the one who has hurt you as a free gift. Forgiveness does not depend on what happens between you and the one who harmed you. You can forgive wholeheartedly even if the other person never wants to reconcile with you. Your forgiveness does not depend on the other’s willingness to reconcile. If it did, then your healing from your wounds would depend on the whims of the other person. Forgiveness does not even require you to be ready to reconcile. Jesus said: “Love your enemies.” He did not say: “Invite them over for tea!” An enemy can remain an enemy even after you have forgiven them.
Forgiveness does not mean granting amnesty. Of course, you have the right to seek compensation from those who have harmed you. If necessary, you can take that person to court to seek redress. When Pope John Paul II forgave Mehmet Ali Ağca for attempting to kill him, he did not demand his release from prison. Ağca was responsible for his act, and therefore he was punished, while the pope was responsible for his reaction to Ağca’s act, so he forgave. There is no contradiction between the assailant being sentenced to prison and the pope forgiving him.
Forgiveness is not weakness. It is something that a healed person does in the strength and power of the Holy Spirit. Only a healed person can forgive. Forgiveness says: “I am now healed from the pain. I refuse to allow this person to control my life in any way. I offer them, as a gift, my forgiveness, which has enabled me to heal.” Forgiveness is the power of Christ, who forgave his enemies on the cross.
Those who disagree with the idea that there is nothing that cannot be forgiven fundamentally disagree with what forgiveness is not, not with what it truly is. Who could possibly reject the one thing that liberates the heart and heals inner wounds? Psychologist Gerald Jampolsky wrote:
From the perspective of love and the Spirit, forgiveness is the willingness to let go of a painful past. It is the decision to no longer suffer and to heal one’s heart and soul. It is the choice to no longer assign value to anger and hatred. It is the freeing of the desire to hurt others for something that is already long past. It is the willingness to open one’s eyes and perceive the better in others, rather than judge and reject them.3
This comprehensive description of forgiveness emphasizes the words “willingness” and “decision.” The same applies to Robert Enright’s definition:
Forgiveness is the willingness to let go of one’s right to anger, negative judgments, indifferent behavior towards the one who has wronged us, while cultivating in ourselves the undeserved ability for compassion, generosity, and even love towards that person.4
Both psychologists, Enright and Jampolsky, focus on the inner state of mind during the act of forgiveness: “the willingness to relinquish the right to resentment,” “the willingness to let go of a painful past,” “the decision to no longer suffer,” “the decision to no longer assign value to anger or hatred,” “to rid oneself of the desire to hurt others,” “the willingness to see the better in others,” “the willingness to foster love for those who have hurt us.” The process of forgiveness begins with this desire within us. Even the “desire to have this desire.” A person in a given situation can say to themselves: “I wish I could at least desire to forgive.” Even the wish to desire forgiveness can open the door to the process of forgiveness. This is sufficient for the Holy Spirit to begin his work. This desire signals that we want to forgive. We do not want to remain in the prison of hatred or vengeance. We recognize that such negative attitudes harm not only our spiritual health but also our physical well-being. As Dr. Jampolsky says:
Research in the field of psychophysiology of human stress has shown that the thoughts and feelings we harbor in our minds often manifest as physical symptoms or emotional disorders such as anxiety, depression, restlessness, low self-esteem, headaches, back pain, neck pain, stomach issues, and weakened immunity, leading to susceptibility to allergies and infections. It is time to stop attacking our bodies with negative thoughts.5
Therefore, he claims that “forgiveness is the most powerful healer of all.”
The Desire to Forgive
Where does the desire to forgive come from? Many things can encourage us to try to forgive one another or ourselves. Sometimes our motives are based on compassion and generosity; at other times, they are much more prosaic: we want to forgive because we feel we should or ought to do so under certain circumstances. At this level, the desire to forgive develops within the thoughts and feelings that create our individual psyche.
The reason we even desire to forgive is not actually as important as the true effort to start working on forgiveness itself. Pretending we have forgiven or “going through all the steps” without genuinely freeing ourselves from anger, injury, and pain will not help us at all. But as soon as we genuinely wish to achieve complete forgiveness, all the liberating gifts of healing and reconciliation that forgiveness brings begin to manifest in our lives.
When we forgive or are forgiven, relief and healing come that radically change our perception of the events and people who have harmed us, as well as of ourselves. Forgiveness brings new feelings towards ourselves and others. These internal changes will permeate us completely. They transcend mere psychology: they bring spiritual growth. When we decide to forgive, we take control of our emotions and reactions and are no longer at the mercy of circumstances. This is a huge step towards mature responsibility for oneself and for the meaning of one’s life. We profoundly open ourselves to our spiritual nature. For this reason, Christians have always viewed forgiveness not only as a powerful means to develop spiritual strength but also as a clear evidence of divine grace.
The Process of Forgiveness
Preparing to Forgive
How does one even begin to forgive, especially when the wound is deep? Just preparing for the fact that we will start working on forgiveness can take some time in itself. How best to do this? Many people in the field suggest certain steps we can take when we prepare to forgive:
Reflect. Think about what actually happened back then, what hurt or angered you so much. Try to gain distance and see things clearly. Were the painful event or word really intentional? Was it not a typical reaction from a person who is normally friendly? Perhaps it was an accident or misunderstanding? Before you consider forgiveness, you need to be clear on the nature of the injury, intention, and the purpose for which you were harmed. The goal is to understand what you want to forgive.
Be aware of your feelings. Allow yourself to feel whatever you feel when recalling that injury, whether it is anger, resentment, rage, fury, fear, vengeance... The goal is to become aware of the burden you carry as a result of this injury.
Share what you’ve understood from the previous activity. Talk to a few close friends about what happened and how you feel. Simply sharing these things with someone often brings the needed healing or at least a new perspective on the issue. Many people who believe in God or a higher power would choose God or a higher power as the best friend to share such feelings and thoughts with, sharing their burdens with the higher power and asking for strength and courage, for its companionship on the journey to forgiveness.
With these steps, we prepare ourselves for forgiveness. But there is so much more hidden in them. As the Dalai Lama writes:
A few years ago, after his escape to India, a Tibetan monk who had spent eighteen years in a Chinese prison visited me in Tibet. I remembered him from our days together in Tibet; the last time we had seen each other was in 1959. During our meeting, I asked him what he perceived as the greatest threat or danger while he was in prison. His answer astonished me. It was exceptional and inspiring. I expected him to say something entirely different; instead, he said that he feared losing compassion for the Chinese.6
He valued his compassion above all. Losing compassion for the Chinese would mean a much greater loss for him than losing eighteen years of freedom in a Chinese prison. Losing compassion would deprive him of his sense of personal integrity.
Compassion is the key to forgiveness and forms the core of the Christian gospel. Jesus tells us: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36). When we fully forgive, we do something much greater than just healing our own wounds and restoring our healthy unity: we act like God, we begin to be like him. The enemy may continue to act hostile, but we have transformed through compassion and love. We express our ability to connect with God, the ability to live in the image of God.
Reassess Your Perspective
In order to be able to offer our compassion to others, we must rediscover the humanity in those who have harmed us. Deep wounds can lead us to demonize them, exiling them into dark places. We refuse any kinship with them. As long as we dehumanize them in our minds, we will never approach healing and forgiveness. The first step to forgiveness is to rediscover the kinship of humanity that we have in common. No matter what they have done to us, they are no less human than we are. We must change our view of them. We call this “reassessing our perspective.” Joanna North writes:
Enright and his colleagues describe “reassessing one’s perspective” as a process in which we perceive the perpetrator in a broader context, building a comprehensive picture of the perpetrator and their actions. This means trying to understand the pressures that influenced the perpetrator at the moment they committed the act, while also recognizing their personality as a result of their specific life history.7
Changing our perspective on the situation helps us to separate the perpetrator from the evil they have committed. When someone does something wrong, it is natural to see only the bad things in them and perceive them overall as a “bad person.” But that person is much more than just the “evil” they have done. We should not confuse the sinner with sin; we must not identify them with evil. On the contrary, we should separate the person from the evil they have committed. The Christian attitude is to hate the sin, not the sinner. We condemn the evil, but we forgive the perpetrator.
Gain Control of Your Emotions
To forgive means to relinquish harsh emotions. (...)
We must gain control over how we think and feel if we are to forgive. If we do not keep our inner “self” under control, we have confusion in our heads and our emotions will bubble up at every new crisis. We will not be able to respond rationally in any conflicting situation. Our difficulty in forgiving in a specific situation may point to a deeper problem in our lives: perhaps we live so that our thoughts and emotions are completely uncontrolled, fluctuating with the slightest irritation. On such a base, our inner strength cannot stand reliably. To achieve a deeper inner life, we must practice the ability to calm ourselves, regain self-control, and forgive.
Helping Others to Forgive
Forgiveness is a tremendous grace, a gift we can achieve through spiritual strength, through inner strength. Just like self-esteem, forgiveness is an “internal affair.” Does this mean that we are powerless and unable to help others on their journey toward the healing grace of forgiveness? No.
We can help each other to forgive and heal. However, we must be very patient, sensitive, and compassionate towards the other. We can try to discern what stage of injury the other is in, then we accept this phase and respect how the other feels in this phase. However, accepting and respecting does not mean that we do not call them to move beyond it and progress. We can say to them: “I know you feel like a victim right now, but you won’t remain a victim your whole life. God will heal you, and you will forgive.” When we patiently stand by the suffering people, when we help them realize where they are wounded, and when we strive to open them up to the great mystery of forgiving love that God pours into their hearts, we can gently lead them on the path of forgiveness. And then one day they will awaken and realize that they have forgiven.
Forgiving Yourself
Have you ever said to yourself: “I will never forgive myself for this”? Unfortunately, many people not only say this but also mean it. We can even “take revenge” on ourselves. We have failed in a significant way, which has wounded us internally. And instead of accepting our weakness that led to the failure, we punish and condemn ourselves as stupid, awful, or not good enough. It is not even so much our failure that troubles us but the fact that we have failed as persons. We harbor resentment towards ourselves. We refuse to accept ourselves. (...)
We can and should open ourselves to the same forgiveness that we receive or that we want to offer to others. If we do not forgive ourselves, if we remain angry with ourselves and refuse to accept ourselves, we cannot accept any forgiveness that others may offer us, and likewise, we cannot offer forgiveness to anyone: we are not spiritually prepared for either.
How can one forgive oneself? If we harbor anger and resentment towards ourselves in our minds, we are like a “divided house.” Both individuals—the one who failed and the one who feels ashamed or wounded by that failure—live in the same skin. “They” are actually one and the same person. The only way to achieve reconciliation with oneself is to fully accept this fact. This acceptance is very subtle and can have far-reaching consequences beyond what we expect. When I accept that both my inadequate side and the part that deserves something better are one and the same person, I first acknowledge that I am not perfect, and second, that my imperfect side deserves good treatment: love. Such a unified view of oneself liberates me to love myself in my entirety, even when I have messed things up. At the same time, it opens the doors to forgiving myself in a much deeper and more enriching way. In this spirit, Christians give thanks to God for who they are and trust themselves completely, without embellishment and with all their flaws, into God’s hands.
