Father Nicholas Nelson: Forgiveness: essential to healing in Jesus

Handing on the Faith 

Last Christmas, Bishop Daniel released his pastoral letter on “Healing, Hope, and Joy in Jesus.” In it, he laid out his vision for our diocese. 

The first part of this vision is the focus on healing. One of the largest parts of healing is forgiveness. My unscientific estimate is that 90% of healing has to do with forgiveness, first our need to be forgiven and second our need to forgive others. I’d like to focus my words this month on the need to forgive others. 

We are obliged to forgive others. There is no option not to if we are to be Christian. The Scriptures are replete with commands to forgive. After saying that the master handed over the unforgiving servant to the torturers, Jesus says, “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart” (Matthew 18:35) and “if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:15). 

I was listening to a Catholic call-in show where the host, a priest, was talking about some of the more challenging teachings of the church. And one caller called in and said this: “Father, asking young people not to live together before marriage, that is just too much, it’s just impractical to expect that from people today.” 

And the wise priest responded, “Impractical? Impractical!? Of course it is. But the entire Gospel is impractical! Loving your enemies, blessing those who curse you, forgiving your brother over and over again … all of it is impractical. But that is what it means to be a follower of Christ.” 

Forgiveness is hard, but if we want to be Catholic, we must forgive. 

So how can we forgive? What can help us forgive? 

First, it’s realizing that we have been forgiven much. People today, even Catholics, don’t realize that their sins, even small ones, are infinite offenses against God. And we shouldn’t downplay them. We owe an infinite debt, and we have no way of paying it back. Yet God freely chooses to forgive us. 

Second, it’s realizing any offense against us is much smaller. Every other offense against us — and some of them are big — relative to our offenses against God, they are much smaller. We must be humble. It’s tempting to take things personally. To exaggerate our self-importance. To think that people’s offenses against us are so big. 

There is an episode when King David is walking with some of his soldiers and a bystander starts to curse him. One of David’s men asks if he should go over and lop off the guy’s head for cursing him. And David, in his humility, says, “Leave him alone, and let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will look on the wrong done to me, and that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing today” (2 Samuel 16:11-12). 

St. Thomas More was put to death in 1535 for opposing the divorce and Acts of Supremacy of England’s King Henry VIII. While he was in prison and recognizing his innocence, but also with great humility, he wrote to his daughter, “If it be [God’s] pleasure that for my other sins I suffer in this case as I shall not deserve, then his grace shall give me the strength to bear it patiently, and perhaps even gladly.” 

Third, it helps to acknowledge that that person who has offended me is a broken, fallen person, acting out of their brokenness. 

God sees us as broken and fallen individuals and acting out of that brokenness. Therefore, he looks at us with compassion and mercy. If we can see the person who has offended us as broken, then we don’t take it personally, we see that they are acting out of their brokenness, and then we can have compassion on them and mercy rather than resentment and anger. 

Unforgiveness means we are identifying the other as their offense against us, and that is never okay. There is always a dignity to the person that is greater than any offense they could commit. 

It’s a beautiful thing, true Christian cultures and communities, whether that be Christian friendships, marriages, homes, schools, parishes, workplaces, etc. They can handle imperfect people, right? Because we all are going to have bad days, do stupid stuff, offend others. 

It’s like a new wine skin versus an old wine skin. If you put new wine into the old, dry and inflexible wine skin, the gases from fermentation will expand and burst the skin, while a new wine skin can stretch and expand with the gases. The same with a Christian community. It can expand. It can handle imperfection and offenses because of forgiveness. 

Finally, be patient with yourself, because it involves your entire being, memory, emotions, etc. It can take time, but we must choose to forgive. And pray. Ask the Lord for help. Lord, I want to forgive. I want to, want to forgive. And then start praying just a Hail Mary for the person and asking God to bless them. And slowly by slowly your heart will turn. 

Yes, forgiveness is impractical. It is tough. But it is healing for us. And by doing so, you are being like Jesus. What an opportunity! You are becoming worthy of the name of Christian. 

Father Nick Nelson is pastor of Queen of Peace and Holy Family parishes in Cloquet and vocations director for the Diocese of Duluth. He studied at The Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Rome. Reach him at [email protected].