How to make forgiveness a part of your life

Published on April 16, 2023March 30, 2023 by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSPLeave a comment

Early in the morning on October 2, 2006 in Dacula, Georgia, twenty-year-old Matt Swatzell was driving home from a twenty-four-hour shift as a firefighter and EMS and had had only 30 minutes of sleep. Less than four miles from his home he fell asleep at the wheel and collided with another car, killing thirty-year-old June who was driving and injuring her nineteen-month-old daughter, Faith.

It was in the hospital that Matt learned that June was pregnant and that both she and the baby did not make it.

June’s husband Erik Fitzgerald was heartbroken. He was a full-time pastor. Close family and friends stood with him as he grieved his wife’s death and that of his unborn child. One day, one of his students said that she couldn’t help but think of how the driver of the car was feeling. Eric immediately asked the group to pray for the driver of the car. With this simple prayer began a journey of forgiveness that has inspired hundreds of thousands. Their story was recounted in Today and People among other outlets.

In the face of the tragedy, Erik recalled a message he heard in a sermon: “In moments where tragedy happens or even hurt, there’s opportunities to demonstrate grace or to exact vengeance. Here was an opportunity where I could do that. And I chose to demonstrate grace.”

To start, Erik attended Matt’s sentencing and extended his forgiveness. As a county officer, Matt was facing a felony and harsh time. But Fitzgerald pleaded for a lesser sentence.

“I didn’t see why this accident and tragedy needed to ruin any more lives,” said the pastor. Matt paid a fine and did community service.

Although Matt wanted to thank Erik for all he had done, he couldn’t legally speak with him during the two-year criminal investigation.

The day before the two-year anniversary of the accident, however, Matt went to the grocery store to purchase a card to send to Erik. When he returned to his car in the parking lot he was just about to turn on the engine when he saw Erik walking into the same store. Not sure what to expect, Matt approached Erik and introduced himself. Matt burst into tears and Erik told him that he forgave him.

“That was the biggest relief I’d ever felt. He just said from the start that he forgives me,” Matt recalled. “Just hearing him say those words, it just impacted my life completely.”

Then Erik told him, “I have a desire to want to be in your life.”

“You forgive as you’ve been forgiven. It wasn’t an option. If you’ve been forgiven, then you need to extend that forgiveness.”
Erik Fitzgerald

The men stayed connected by meeting at least once every two weeks, attending church together and eating meals at the Waffle House and other restaurants, just the two of them.

“We recognized that when we first started meeting it was unusual. We knew it was God,” said Erik. “You forgive as you’ve been forgiven. It wasn’t an option. If you’ve been forgiven, then you need to extend that forgiveness.”

“Part of the draw I felt to befriend Matthew was he was a good guy. He wasn’t a convict or on drugs. He was just a guy who got off a shift,” said Erik. “I felt it was my responsibility to encourage him and see the big picture.”

So Erik was there for Matt when he married and at the birth of their first child, who shares a birthday with Erik’s own daughter. Matt’s anxiety and guilt were still so overwhelming that he feared something would happen to his wife and child. After many meetings with Erik and a counsellor, Matt was able to move past the hurt.

“I can honestly say that without this friendship I don’t know where I’d be,” said Matt. “I can’t say, ‘This is a beautiful story and it’s got a great ending.’ It doesn’t,” he told Today in an interview. “It’s nasty, it’s real, and it’s something that I’m going to struggle with for the rest of my life.”

A Process for Forgiveness

Forgiveness can be difficult, particularly when our inner resources are depleted. It’s difficult for anyone to rise above the pain of being hurt by another or the guilt we feel when we have hurt someone else. We feel we were justified. Or perhaps we can’t admit that we were responsible and that hanging on to being in the right is somehow hanging on to the last shred of our sense of self. Unforgiveness creates a tremendous weight of bitterness, rejection, and broken relationships.

When I am hurt I have trouble being near the person until I have worked through my anger and released them from my demands that they be different than who they are at this time. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting or even pardoning an offense. It means changing our response to the offense. Some ways to practice what I call “everyday forgiveness” are: forgive yourself, forgive the “stupid stuff” that happens every day, forgive the people and institutions that have hurt us, forgive the unmerited suffering that seems so unfair like an illness or failure. Instead of bitterness, choose to offer compassion and empathy to the person or institution or event that wronged you.

People who forgive tend to be more satisfied with their lives and to have less depression, anxiety, stress, anger, and hostility. People who hang onto grudges, however, are more likely to experience severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as other health conditions. That doesn’t mean that they can’t train themselves to act in healthier ways. Here is a method of forgiveness that you might try:

1.) Reflect and remember the event that has wronged you. How did you react? How did you feel? How has your anger and hurt affected you since?

2.) Empathize with the other person. Try to understand what could have led the other person to do what they did to hurt you. You may begin to realize that the one they are truly hurting is themselves. How much they must be suffering from their own negative behavior.

3.) Forgive deeply. We are not talking here about behavior that is abusive and destructive. Ultimately no one is perfect. In this exercise we are addressing how annoying, hurtful, broken people hurt us all the time. The choice to forgive is ultimately the choice to love and to release the other from the obligation to pay you back because of what they have done. It is a choice for your own happiness, when you let your grievances go.

4.) Let go of expectations. An apology may not change your relationship with the other person or elicit an apology from him or her. Forgiveness needs to be offered with no strings attached. It is a gift of compassion, offered because it is the right thing to do, because God has invited us to live in forgiveness, and because it makes us happy. If you don’t expect apologies or changed behavior, you won’t be disappointed.

5.) Decide to forgive. Once you make that choice, seal it with an action. If you don’t feel you can talk to the person who wronged you, write about your forgiveness in a journal or even talk about it to someone else in your life that you trust.

6.) Forgive God and forgive yourself. The act of forgiving includes forgiving God if you are angry with him for what happened and how your life has turned out because of the offense. We often need to forgive ourselves also for any way in which the wrong we have received has affected us or our other relationships.

Image Credit: Public Domain via Rawpixel

O charity beyond all telling! (Contemplating the Easter Mysteries I)

Published on April 16, 2023 by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP1 Comment

As I listened to the chanting of the Easter Proclamation at the Easter Vigil this year, my heart heard as if for the first time the words:

O wonder of your humble care for us!
O love, O charity beyond all telling,
to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!

Most of us can’t even imagine a love that would give away a precious treasure for the sake of someone that hated them. Yet Christ shed his blood that we, the daughters and sons of Adam and Eve, might live forever.

St. John Chrysostom explained it this way in Homily 15 on First Timothy:

”It is not in this way only that I have shown My love to thee, but by what I have suffered. For thee I was spit upon, I was scourged. I emptied myself of glory, I left My Father and came to thee, who dost hate Me, and turn from Me, and art loath to hear My Name. I pursued thee, I ran after thee, that I might overtake thee. I united and joined thee to myself, ‘eat Me, drink Me,’ I said. Above I hold thee, and below I embrace thee.”

O charity beyond all telling!

Have you noticed that when we purchase or receive something that we really want, it captures all our attention, not just at the moment we first have it, but for hours, or days and weeks afterwards. Depending on what it is, it may change the way we organize our time or our stuff (both digital and physical stuff!), or the way we entertain ourselves or even our appearance. We may discover we work better, make different decisions, feel differently about ourselves.

And then there is the unavoidable moment when we lose interest, we look for the next release, upgrade, improved version. Something different. Something more striking, more “us,” more useful. In a commercial world, we keep something only as long as it serves us and keeps our interest. Then we move on.

The Church, as a good Mother, knows that we are like this, and that our hearts which tire so easily and our attention which wanders so quickly need to re-fascinated with Jesus and the Eucharist for which there will be no upgrade or improved version.

The Easter Season—all 50 days of it—is for this reawakening of our hearts. We could find ourselves at times in something similar to a boring friendship, where we’ve lost interest in Jesus and his love in the Eucharist. Our “hearts move on” to things of earth, rather than things of heaven. We find ourselves searching for something more shiny and useful to us.

In the seven weeks of Easter, following the liturgical celebrations of Holy Week in which we experienced anew the “charity beyond all telling,” the Church invites us to immerse ourselves into what it is to believe, celebrate, live and pray as Catholics within the larger community of the Church. In the same way as our gadgets and toys make remarkable shifts in the way we live our lives, the death and resurrection of Christ celebrated at Easter is also the time when we learn to live as Christ in new ways, to think as Christ, to speak as Christ, to engage the world as Christ, to love as Christ. We ourselves become in the world this “charity beyond all telling!”

Again, in the words of St. John Chrysostom, our eyes need to be opened to the power of the blood poured out for us on Calvary:

This Blood, poured forth, washed clean all the world. This Blood is the salvation of our souls. By it the soul is washed, is made beautiful, and is set on fire. It causes our understanding to be brighter than fire and our soul more sparkling than gold. This Blood was poured forth and made heaven accessible.

Easter morning we arrived at the church for Mass 30 minutes early and barely found a parking place! We were seated in one of the last empty pews. What would the world be like if every Sunday most Catholics flocked to the Mass with the same urgency they congregate at restaurants and malls and athletic events….

What would the world be like if we spontaneously broke out in grateful praise during the day, announcing what Christ has done for all humanity in his death and resurrection, and the grace available to us today through the sacraments….

What if we ran to Mass because it was only there that we felt totally satisfied by the Eucharist, nourished, loved, and supported there by God himself and by the community….

Next: Easter Mystagogy 2: Baptism: becoming God’s beloved one

Photo credit: jlmajano via Cathopic

The Magi rejoiced with great joy exceedingly (Horizons of the Heart 19)

Published on April 15, 2023November 21, 2023 by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP1 Comment

The grace we are asking of God: a deeply felt awareness of how God draws us into the unfolding of the mystery of the Word made flesh and how in doing this we enter into a process of healing that we might love Jesus and follow him more intentionally, completely, and wholeheartedly.

Horizons of the Heart is inspired by the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius and my own notes from my thirty-day Ignatian retreat in 2022. See an index for the whole series.

Entering Prayer

Offer your prayer to God, desiring that in every way it will give him glory. I pour myself out in worship. You could use a few lines from the following passage from the prophet Isaiah if this helps you enter into prayer:

Isaiah 60:1-6

Ask of God what you think you need. (It could be later that God will show what you truly need and what should be asking for, but begin now where you are.)

Imagining Yourself Present

Over several periods of prayer, linger imaginatively over the events narrated in Matthew 2:1-12.

These men who studied the stars came from the east in search of the newborn king of the Jews. They came because they saw in the sky a star that indicated to them that a new king had been born, and it went before them into the land of Judea. The wise men, as we popularly call them today, went first to Herod’s palace in Jerusalem, and after inquiring where the child would be born, they journeyed on to Bethlehem where the star stopped over the place where the child lay.

These visitors from the East were people of great wealth and power. They are called Magi in the Greek, which was a term that referred to a kind of subclass of Persian priests. Looking to a star was very much in keeping with the religious tradition of this place in which they looked to the heavens, the stars, and the planets for information about the gods’ wishes and doings. Interestingly, according to Time (December 13, 2004) “Secrets of the Nativity,” when the actual Persians came marauding Judea in 614, the only place of worship they didn’t touch was the Church of the Nativity in Palestine, whose golden entry mosaic featured the Magi dressed as Persians.

According to a calculation by German astronomer Johannes Kepler in the 16th century, an extremely rare conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn occurred three times in the constellation Pisces in 7 B.C., appearing to observers as a single luminous star. This would coincide with St. Matthew’s description of the celestial body appearing, disappearing and then reappearing to the Magi.

This theory gained more credibility in 1925, when German orientalist Paul Schnabel deciphered ancient cuneiform tablets from the astronomical school of the Babylonian city of Sippar, which described the exact same astronomical conjunction in 7 B.C.

The Magi from the East brought gifts of gold (a gift for a king), frankincense (an incense and symbol of deity), and myrrh (an embalming oil and symbol of death).

There are various calculations about how long this journey was and how many people would have been in the entourage that arrived in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The length of their journey is estimated by the distance they travelled and the fact that Herod, who had heard the story of the star directly from the Magi, killed all baby boys in Bethlehem and the environs who were two years old and younger. We could say then that the Magi perhaps travelled 5 to 9 months to reach Bethlehem. They would have had to spend several months preparing for such a long journey and would have spent the same amount of time making their journey home. That’s quite a length of time, definitely a major commitment on their part.

In one Bible translation’s footnote regarding the passage in Matthew 2 that recounts the arrival of the Magi in Jerusalem, it is speculated that there may have been a hundred people in their entourage. Three persons arriving in Jerusalem would not have created such a stir as is recounted by Matthew. Whether it was a hundred people or not, the Magi would have needed to bring along servants, cooks (there weren’t restaurants in the desert), security, persons to put up tents and take care of animals for a journey that could potentially last almost two years.

We know that the Magi did not arrive in Bethlehem while Jesus was in the manger because Matthew reports that they found Jesus in a “house.” Additionally, Mary and Joseph offered the gifts of the poor when they brought Jesus to the temple. They would not have done so if they had gold, frankincense and myrrh stashed away in Bethlehem where they had been staying since the birth of Jesus.

This is a perfect time to imagine who you are on this journey. One of the Magi? A servant? The cook? Just someone tagging along? Or following them from a distance?

Imagine the length of time you would have had to commit to in order to follow the star with them. What you would have had to leave behind for potentially a year and a half or more of travel to an unknown destination? We know now where the Magi ended their journey, where they found what they were looking for, but they set out on a journey to follow a star wherever it went and however long it took.

Where are you in this story? Speak to the people that are with you along the way. Allow your affective imagination to lead you closer to them, to give you a sense of this felt-closeness that you so desire. You can imagine with your mind’s eye, with your sense of hearing or touch.

Imagining the Gospel events in the present

Over time, allow these stories in the gospel of Matthew to become current as if the Magi (and you along with their whole entourage) are travelling to some unknown destination in the world today. Somewhere out of your comfort zone. Perhaps into the territory of a government you would consider an enemy or a threat.

What keeps you going? What do you fear? Anticipate? Hope for? Expect?

Watch the Magi. What are their feelings associated with seeing the star?

“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2 NIV). “We’ve come to bow before him in worship” (TPT).

^“After their audience with the king they set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star” (Matthew 2:9-10 NABRE).

“And on their way to Bethlehem, the same star they had seen in the East suddenly reappeared! Amazed, they watched as it went ahead of them and stopped directly over the place where the child was. And when they saw the star, they were so ecstatic that they shouted and celebrated with unrestrained joy (TPT).

The footnote in The Passion Translation states that “the Greek here is hard to translate since it contains so many redundant words for joy in this one verse. It is literally, ‘They rejoiced with a great joy exceedingly.’ They were ecstatic!”

“When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy” (Matthew 2:10 AMP).

Observe how the Magi express these feelings. Usually we picture them kneeling in the stable as we see at Christmas. We aren’t as reflective about what it meant for them to be led by a star to the one who had just been born before whom they would bow down in worship. Listen to their conversations among themselves. Ask them why they are so happy.

In Gospel Contemplation, Ignatius takes advantage of the way in which spiritual growth, like so many other aspects of maturing that we experience, takes place primarily when our affectivity is engaged. It is the shift in one’s deeper emotions and feelings that leads to a change in one’s behavior. We reach these deeper levels through metaphor, image, and symbol—the work of the imagination.

Observing attractions and resistance

Notice any interior reactions that you experience: comfort, discomfort, being lifted up, struggle, joy, sadness….

Observe the actions, words, emotions, sensitivities, attitudes of the Magi, Herod, the people in Jerusalem. To which of them do you feel more attracted? Which of them arouse more negative feelings or resistance? Return to aspects of these meditations that seem more personally meaningful.

Entering the Mystery of the story

As you begin to enter the mystery of the story more deeply, you will begin to see or hear or touch. As you see the glory of the star, you may be drawn to “see” the faith of the Magi. As you walk in the “dark” and shudder in the “cold,” you may realize that what is truly dark and cold is the lack of faith, the refusal of faith, the way the others did not go along to worship. After all we are talking about a six-mile journey from Jerusalem to Bethlehem.

You will enter into the event and interact more deeply. Little by little you will become more present to the mystery and the mystery will be present to you.

As you become more and more involved in the event of Jesus’ mystery that you are contemplating, your life and your choices are affected.

Watching the Magi’s exceeding joy may open your heart to the Holy Spirit as your life and heart are lifted up along with these men who travelled so far and so long to bow in worship.

You may also sense the tension in the story as one group devotes themselves to following the “star” that leads them to Jesus (at great cost to themselves) and another group doesn’t seem to notice or care, or rejects him all together. After all, it was clear to the chief priests and scribes that they knew that from Bethlehem a “ruler” would come “who will shepherd my people Israel” (v. 6). They told Herod so when he requested anxiously to know where the Messiah was to be born. But they did not go themselves to Bethlehem. They did not bother to even be curious about whether this was the Messiah. And Herod tried to kill him in a move of political expediency.

As you continue playing out your part in the story of the Magi, you find yourself changing and desiring to change.

Conversing as with a friend

Read the following verses from Psalm 72 and the prophet Isaiah (62:11-12) in relation to the visit of the Magi. Both of these passages are read in the liturgy on the feast of the Epiphany. Read this slowly, several times, allowing some moments of rest between your reading.

“May the kings of Tarshish and the islands bring tribute,
the kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts.
May all kings bow before him,
all nations serve him” (Psalm 72:10-11).

“Arise! Shine, for your light has come,
the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you
. . . Nations shall walk by your light,
kings by the radiance of your dawning
Raise your eyes and look about;
they all gather and come to you —
Your sons from afar
. . . Then you shall see and be radiant
. . . For the riches of the sea shall be poured out before you,
the wealth of nations shall come to you.
Caravans of camels shall cover you,
dromedaries of Midian and Ephah;
All from Sheba shall come
bearing gold and frankincense
and heralding the praises of the Lord” (Isaiah 60:1-6).

Is there some new awareness coming forward as you consider these words? Do they shed some unexpected or new light on your own following of Jesus?

Continue in quiet—or even silent—intimate conversation with the Magi and with Jesus. Ask them what is the grace that you should be praying for. Beg this grace of the Father. Then beg this grace of the Son, your Savior and Shepherd. Finally, beg for this grace from the Holy Spirit who is the source of all holiness.

If you wholly lived this grace that you are begging for, what would your life look like? Your relationships? Your prayer? The way you work? The way you love? The way you serve? What about you would make you the most happy?

Ask the Magi and Jesus to show you one specific gift they wish to give you. Receive it and remain in stillness and quietly relaxed presence under the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Reviewing the graces of prayer

When you finish praying, write down the main gifts and discoveries from this time of intimate contemplation. What is one concrete thing you can do to solidify these gifts in your life.

Image Credit: Edward Burne-Jones, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

What is your favorite book of the Bible? (Guest Post)

Published on April 10, 2023 by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP1 Comment

Every once in a while people will ask me, “Sister, what is your favorite book of the Bible?” I actually smile as I think to myself, “Well, if you had asked me this question a few years ago, I would have absolutely responded: ‘Isaiah, because he is like a fifth Evangelist for me.’” In fact, some of the early Fathers regarded the book of Isaiah as ‘a Fifth Gospel,” because Isaiah’s poetry and prophecy speak so powerfully to a coming King, a royal figure who would be the Suffering Servant for his people, and the victory of the Anointed One over all the dark forces in the world. (1)

Recently, however, when I am asked about my favorite book of the Bible, I have to be honest. It is still Isaiah, but now there is Matthew and Genesis. Of course, there is also the book of Psalms which we pray daily at morning and evening prayer. And I absolutely can’t forget my other favorite prophets, Daniel, Ezekiel and Jeremiah. In fact, I talk to them as I reflect on their prophecies, their lives, and the prophetic call they received from God. They really are friends to me, so I call them by nicknames: Dan (Daniel), Ezy (Ezekiel) and Jerry (Jeremiah). (Let me explain: as an extrovert I’m famous for talking aloud to the people in the seats next to me at movies, the actors on the screen, or even to the characters in the Bible, as well as anyone else within earshot! It’s my way of connecting.)

Actually, when it comes down to it, I love the whole Bible. Truly every word is of the Holy Spirit!

The Holy Spirit is our guarantor to understanding Holy Scripture. He enlightens our souls with just a word from Holy Scripture, and allows us to walk with our Creator who humbly resides within our souls. “My Father and I will come to you,” Jesus said, “and make our home with you” (cf. John 14:23). There is no greater joy or peace than to have God in our hearts, in our minds, and in our wills. And this prayerful union exhilarates our souls and allows us to bathe in God’s grace and love, filling us with healing and peace.

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
Saint Augustine

By giving us a mind, will, and heart, God made us in his own image and likeness. Saint Augustine writes in his Confessions the famous prayer, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” How we need this rest every day!

With the Holy Spirit, we can take even just a word or phrase from Holy Scripture and do a “deep dive,” finding the God who loves us immutably. In this way, we discover how the story of Salvation continues even in our own lives.

So what is your favorite book of the Bible? Which book gives you the springboard to make a “deep dive” into God’s love so that you can journey with him for another day? Let me know in the comments below.

By Sr. Irene Wright, FSP

Image credit: Photo by Tara Winstead

Jesus meets us at our “charcoal fires”

Published on April 4, 2023 by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSPLeave a comment

When it comes to St Peter, those last days of Jesus’ life and his death on Calvary became pretty intense. “You will never wash my feet!” Peter told the Master kneeling with basin and towel before him.

“I will never betray you!” Peter attested before his brother apostles when Jesus revealed that someone was going to betray him, someone in the room, someone he had known and trusted, someone he didn’t name. What a surge of terror may have passed through Peter as he imagined what that meant, what that might mean if it was him, what that would mean for their future. No. I will never betray you! the burly fisherman asserted if only to keep the potential terrors at bay.

“I do not know the man!” Before a wimpy servant-girl, the self-proclaimed immovable column of fidelity and strength collapsed. Three times. I don’t know this Jesus.

The witness of this intense shame was the charcoal fire around which everyone was warming themselves on that chilly and fateful night.

All of us have our own charcoal fires.

Back in the shadowy cobwebs of memories we wish were not our own, there are plenty of charcoal fires where we have chosen safety, pleasure, conceit over this Jesus whom we proclaim to love with all our hearts. The embers of these charcoal fires still may be warm, the ashes not yet blown away on the winds of mercy.

The charcoal fire appears again in Peter’s story shortly after the resurrection. He was out fishing, unsuccessfully, when a man called across the lake to lower their nets on the starboard side. Immediately the nets were filled to the breaking point. “It is the Lord!” John whispered to Peter.

What emotion must have gone through Peter’s heart at that moment. Without a fear, without a worry, without a memory of the ashes that still smoldered from the charcoal fire that witnessed his betrayal of the Lord, Peter leapt into the water and ran ashore.

And there Jesus stood.

Next to the visual symbol of his betrayal, of his weakness, of his shame.

And it was at that charcoal fire that Jesus asked him one question, three times: Do you love me? In the Passion Translation of the Bible the footnote for John 21:15 sheds some light on this question: The Aramaic word for “love” is hooba, and is taken from a root word that means “to set on fire.” This was the word Jesus would have used to ask Peter, “Do you burn with love for me?”

This time there were from Peter no blustering assertions and self-important declarations. Peter had touched the very roots of his weakness. Those weaknesses and mistakes and even sins that have been witnessed by our charcoal fires become the bridges to truth, to humility, to the trust that children have because they are not able to do anything for themselves.

The footnote continues: It was Peter’s boast that he loved Jesus more than the others, and though everyone else would leave him, Peter never would. That boast proved empty, as within hours of making the claim, Peter denied he even knew Jesus three times. So Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. In essence, Jesus knew how to bring healing to Peter and remove the pain of his denial. Three times Peter denied Jesus, but three times he made his confession of his deep love for Christ. By the third time, the “crowing rooster” inside Peter had been silenced, and now he was ready to be a shepherd for Jesus’ flock.

Here are five things always to remember when you think about the wounds the charcoal fires in your life have witnessed:

Jesus resets the relationship we have with him. After three denials he invited Peter to express his love for him. No shame or guilt or failure or regret. It is about love. It is one hundred percent about love. No matter what you have done in your life, Jesus wants to know only one thing: Do you love me? Right now, here Jesus calling you by name and asking you that question.
Peter and several other apostles went fishing, spending a futile night on the lake. He who had been made to be a “fisher of men,” returned to what he had been before he met the Lord Jesus at the lake’s shore three years earlier. Perhaps Peter thought that was all he was good for after having failed so miserably. But Jesus knew Peter. Jesus knew Peter loved him. Sometimes we are ashamed and we also reduce ourselves to a small life, letting go of dreams, relinquishing hope, sometimes even the hope of eternal life. It seems that there could be no way that God could not be disappointed in us. At the charcoal fire, however, Peter realized that God was not surprised, angry, vindictive or disappointed. When we stumble God is there to meet our failure with grace, a limitless love for all of us limping saints.
Charcoal fires have a distinct smell. When Peter swam to shore and smelled the fire, the memory of the other, so recent and still stinging experience at a charcoal fire still seared his conscience. Jesus invited Peter to follow him into the memory of his failure and betrayal. Instead of leaving Peter to sink in the shame of these memories, Jesus invited Peter to let him into those memories. They could face them together. We all have memories of sins committed, as well as sins committed against us. Shame and guilt surround these memories. Memories that wound, that we want to hide, that we pretend never happened. But Jesus helped Peter confront the memory of his betraying the Master he loved. It is an invitation to not fear the healing process when Jesus stands on the shores of our heart, asking us to let him in, to let go of the past, to allow him to heal and transform our wounds with his glorious mercy. Jesus will often take us into memories where we do not wish to go, but he knows that we are more than we think we’ve become by our mistakes and weakness. By standing in our memories with Jesus, things change.
Peter was hurt when Jesus asked him a third time, Do you love me? God’s love for us doesn’t gloss over our pain, the wounds that need healing in our life. Jesus specifically drew Peter to himself in order to reset the broken places of his denial with mercy. But just as a doctor carefully resets a broken bone (he doesn’t just say, “Oh, you’ll be all right. Everything is just fine.”), Jesus re-sets what is broken within us through the medicine of mercy. Even if the “brokenness” in our life has hardened and our hearts are “deformed” because they’ve never been taken under the Divine Physician’s care, love can make us pliable and whole once more. This is what Jesus does. In some mysterious way he is right now arranging your renewal through mercy and the willingness to love.
When Peter denied Jesus, he also denied himself. He denied his love for the Master, the three years of growth and transformation as he walked by the Master’s side. Peter denied who he had become as the follower of Jesus and his apostle. On the shore that post-Resurrection morn, after a futile night fishing on the lake, Peter had again come up with nothing after relying on the one thing he felt he should be able to do–fish. He was a fisherman, after all. Jesus needed Peter to understand that he could not continue relying on himself. Again and again, with every boastful or desperate attempt to prove himself or provide for himself, he realized the nothingness from which he came and the nothingness of which he, of himself, was capable. “Throw your nets off the starboard side and you will catch something.” “Simon, do you love me? Feed my lambs.” Jesus has a plan for Peter who is to lead the Church as Rock. However, Peter needed to lead as sinner, not savior. Only Jesus saves. All of us, everyone of us, needs saving, yet participates in the mystery of the salvation of others. Always, it is miracle. Forever, it is mercy.

This Easter Jesus wants to bring you healing. He wants to turn the charcoal fire of your shame to the place that witnesses your humble love for him, your answer to Jesus’ heart that you will be his friend, that you will let him lead you, forgive you, heal you, and shape anew your life.

Suffering and Forgiveness: Lessons from Corrie Ten Boom

Published on April 2, 2023March 30, 2023 by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP1 Comment

“Forgiveness is the Christlike suffering which it is the Christian’s duty to bear” (Deitrick Bonhoeffer).

That stings.

No one likes bearing suffering. The idea that Jesus has made suffering a part of Christian life that we can’t escape doesn’t make it easier. In fact, I’ve seen this idea lead to anger at Jesus.

Corrie ten Boom, born on April 15, 1892 in Haarlem, Netherlands, also didn’t find it easy, even as she preached the Gospel message of love and forgiveness. You may recognize her name as she was the author of the very popular book The Hiding Place. The Ten Boom family had decided to hide Jews in their home during the Occupation when a woman in May 1942 knocked on their door asking for refuge. The father readily took her in although the police headquarters was only half a block away. The whole family worked in the Resistance until on February 28, 1944, a Dutch informant, Jan Vogel, told the Nazis about the Ten Booms’ work. A little after noon that day, the Nazis arrested the entire Ten Boom family.

In September 1944, the Nazis deported Corrie and Betsie ten Boom to the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women in Germany. Life at Ravensbrück was almost unbearable, but Betsie and Corrie spent their time sharing Jesus’ love with their fellow prisoners. There, they held worship services after the hard days at work by using a Bible that they had managed to smuggle into the camp. Through the two sisters’ teachings and examples of unfailing charity, many of the prisoners there converted to Christianity. While they were imprisoned at Ravensbrück, Betsie and her sister began to discuss plans for founding a place of healing after the war. Betsie’s health continued to deteriorate, and she died on 16 December 1944 at the age of 59. Before she died, she told Corrie, “There is no pit so deep that He [God] is not deeper still.” Twelve days later, Corrie was released because of a clerical error. Corrie Ten Boom returned home amid the “hunger winter.” She still opened her doors to people with disabilities who were in hiding for fear of execution.

After the war, ten Boom advocated reconciliation as a means for overcoming the psychological scars left by the Nazi occupation. In her presentations after World War II when she sought to be a voice of healing, Corrie used to say to people who came up to her with their own stories of bitterness and non-forgiveness, “Can you forgive this person?”

When they said they couldn’t, or that they didn’t know how they could ever forgive the person who had hurt them, she would reply, “No? I can’t either. But God can.”

Sounds kind of pollyannish doesn’t it? I remember, though, one time in confession telling the priest that I couldn’t forgive someone under whom I had suffered for many years. And I had tried, seriously tried, to forgive for many years. Again and again. His words broke the cycle of my struggles that seemed to be getting me nowhere. “Yes you can,” he said to me. “You can forgive because Jesus makes that possible, Jesus who died on the cross for you and for them.”

They were words backed up with grace and rooted in the ground of truth.

Maybe instead of talking about whether or not we have forgiven, we should instead acknowledge in our whole life we are simply learning how to forgive, learning how to love enough to bear this responsibility of being the forgiving and merciful Jesus in the world today.

After the war, Ten Boom returned to the Netherlands to set up a rehabilitation center in Bloemendaal. The refuge housed concentration-camp survivors and until 1950 exclusively sheltered jobless Dutch who had collaborated with the Germans during the Occupation, after which it accepted anyone in need of care. She returned to Germany in 1946 and met with and forgave two Germans who had been employed at Ravensbrück, one of whom had been particularly cruel to Betsie. Ten Boom went on to travel the world as a public speaker, appearing in more than 60 countries. She wrote many books during this period.

In a story run in Guideposts in the year 1972, Corrie Ten Boom narrates how she came to realize that she herself was still learning to forgive.

She had just finished speaking in a church in Munich. It was 1947 and she had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. As people filed out of the basement, a heavy-set balding man clutching a felt hat between his hands approached the front of the room where she stood.

As soon as she saw him, it came back with a rush. This man had been a guard in the large room at Ravensbrück where the newly arrived women had to undress and leave their clothes and shoes in a pile. In shame they had been forced to walk naked past this man. Now he stood there, pathetic himself, humbled.

“You mentioned Ravensbrück in your talk,” he said. “I was a guard in there. But since that time I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein, …” his hand came out, … “will you forgive me?”

Corrie stood there, frozen, ice clutching at her heart. Her sister had died at Ravensbrück. Did this man think that he could erase her slow terrible death simply by asking for forgiveness. She wrestled in her heart with the most difficult thing she had ever had to do.

Finally, after what had seemed hours but which were probably just seconds, she remembered that forgiveness is an act of the will not the emotions. She prayed silently to Jesus for help. She told him, “I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You, Jesus, must supply the feeling.”

In her own words recorded in the story in Guideposts, Corrie said, “And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. ‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’ For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.”

What forgiveness is not

Forgiveness is not easy. We can only forgive because God has forgiven us. It is only by experiencing forgiveness ourselves, that we can understand how precious it is to give this gift to another. We all have received the mercy of God. He has forgiven our sins, washed them away—even though we don’t deserve it. This is why St Paul can say in the letter to the Ephesians: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you” (Eph 4:31-32).

Forgiveness is not an emotion, it is an act of the will. As Corrie faced the gentleman who had been a guard when she had been at Ravensbrück, her heart’s thermometer was cold, small, frightened. Even though she preached forgiveness with her actions and her words, even though she knew that she had been forgiven by God and needed to respond to this person before her asking for her forgiveness, her heart’s reactions didn’t correspond to what her mind knew. She simply asked Jesus’ help and, by an act of the will, stuck out her arm and asked God to do the rest. What she experienced—“I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then”—was God’s action within her. It was gift. She received in her own spirit the divine love and mercy that characterized the heart of God.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting. The expectation that we will forget the person and actions through which we have been hurt is called denial. I’m sure Corrie was haunted all her life by what she had experienced in the concentration camp and by the slow death of her beloved sister Betsie. Her prayers, her encouragement to others, her preaching, her actions to provide places of healing for those who had suffered as she had in the concentration camps, as heroic as they may have been, were softened and sifted and saturated by her own struggles with memories, heart-movements of loss and grief, flashbacks and psychological struggles, as well as her desire and determination to be a person of reconciliation.

Forgiveness doesn’t excuse the wrong. Forgiveness doesn’t say that what was done doesn’t matter. If it didn’t matter, then there would be no need of forgiveness. Instead, forgiveness respects and reverences what has happened and the deep wound it has caused. Forgiveness says: “I know what you did. It hurt. It damaged me. It wounded me in ways that I may bear for the rest of my life. But I won’t hold it against you.”

Forgiveness is not reconciliation. In any number of ways, Corrie had forgiven those who had destroyed her family and her Jewish brothers and sisters. She encouraged others to forgive them. She had run a rehabilitation for concentration-camp survivors which until 1950 exclusively sheltered jobless Dutch who had collaborated with the Germans during the Occupation. She travelled to Germany to meet with and forgive two Germans who had been employed at Ravensbrück. That night, however, in the basement of the church in Munich, God asked her to go a step further. Reconciliation requires repentance. In this case, the former guard who approached her had repented and had even become a Christian. He extended a hand and asked her directly for forgiveness. There are many times that we may forgive, but reconciliation at that point is not a question. There is no repentance. It would be dangerous or unhealthy to reconcile with an individual who could continue to hurt us. There are other times, however, when we can offer this reconciliation. In Corrie’s case, she probably never saw this man again. When we take that next step of reconciliation, it doesn’t mean that we are required to resume friendships or move back in with the offending individual. We can reconcile without putting ourselves in the position of being hurt again, particularly when we ourselves haven’t healed sufficiently to create and enforce clear and healthy boundaries.

What forgiveness is

For us, forgiveness is a matter of becoming capable, of being given the power, to disrupt the cycle of continued wrath and suffering we experience as inevitable. Forgiveness is always going to be demanding, costly, and a freely chosen effort. Others cannot tell us when and how we must forgive. No one but we ourselves can require us to forgive.

As we wrestle with forgiving, here are three things that will help us open to God’s grace:

Pay attention to how thoughts about the person make it more difficult to forgive. Take your mind off of the person. Don’t give yourself the luxury of grumbling. Don’t justify yourself or feel sorry for yourself. Don’t imagine ways you could get even. When you see those thoughts coming in for a landing just tell them that there is no place for them in your heart.
Remember that you yourself have been forgiven any number of times. Recall a time when God has shown you his love and let you start again. Remember a time when someone else has shown you mercy. Ask God to help you call to mind times when you have needed forgiveness just as any other sinner. Practice being grateful for the mercy you have shown by the Lord.
Whenever the person who has hurt you comes to mind say the words “I forgive you” whether you feel it or not. Remember that forgiveness is an act of the will, and our emotions often deceive us. Just because we feel anger and hatred for another, our will can still choose to forgive, to at least say the words “I forgive you.” Ask the Holy Spirit to pour God’s love into your heart. When you are ready, you can take the next step of asking God to bless this person.

We can only offer ourselves to God’s action—to “seek, suffer (that is, allow), and trust.” And in that effort, God will supply for all that we fall short.

This article is the second in a series on forgiveness. Read Saint Rita: How to Choose Forgiveness.

Image: Luis Ángel Espinosa, LC via Cathopic