41. FORGIVENESS

     Forgiveness is a painful process, and there is no way through the process except through it.

     I encountered the workings of the process vividly even before I understood the grieving process.  I was meeting with a woman unable to escape from the grip of a suffocating depression.  As we prayed together, she blurted out:  "I can't forgive him, and I won't."  Somehow, talking to God spontaneously had tapped a long-buried memory of being sexually abused by a neighbor who was regarded by her parents as a virtual grandfather to their children.

    Somehow, I resisted the temptation to assert that she should forgive, if she wanted to be a good Christian, or that she must forgive, if she wanted to find a way out of her depression.  Such responses would have pressured her to re-bury the pain, shame, rage and anxiety that had ruled her life for far too long.  And somehow, I realized that the significance of my conviction that Jesus' healing and life-giving love for each of us comes to us through one another.

    As that realization sunk in, I heard the call to walk through that dark valley (the valley of death) with her, without judgments or agendas.  Sometimes, I wanted to rescue her from the excruciating pain she voiced as she relived the horrible experiences of her childhood.  At these times, I must have heard echoes of Jesus' cry in the Agony of the Garden, "Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me, but not my will but thine be done", since I responded simply with compassion and understanding.

    After several months, she moved from "I can't forgive him, and I won't" to "I want to forgive him, but I can't."  Two separate dynamics were at work.  On the one hand, she wanted to be free of the pain, rage, shame and anxiety that had plagued her for so long, so that she could get on with her life.  (When this urge reached fruition, forgiveness of him would be a gift she gave to herself.)  On the other, she started to refer to him as a pathetic, lonely man, not a monster, as her compassion was freed from the rule of rage.

    A few months later, she spoke of rejoicing in the freedom she felt in her involvements with loved ones and with God.  And I realized that the process of forgiveness is never complete until wounds have been healed in ways that enable us to embrace our flawed existence as human beings with joy.

     Summary:  A student framed this process accurately in a concise statement:  "Men never forgive;  they regard forgiveness as a sign of weakness.  Women forgive too easily;  they want desperately to be nice, and they shouldn't have bad thoughts."

      Here, I find myself grieving once again over the conclusion reached by a Conference sponsored by the Roman Curia.  The manifesto produced by this gathering of like-minded theologians attributed the virtual disappearance of the Sacrament of Reconciliation to a loss of a sense of sin.  Here, I simply suggest that a sense of guilt cannot voice a call to enter the grieving process which moves from "I can't forgive, and I won't" to "I want to forgive, but I can't," to a renewed embrace of one's deepest longing for a fully human and uniquely personal existence and for intimate interactions with the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and loved ones.