Forgiveness can be hard. It stems from strength, not weakness. Understood rightly, it is wise, healing and beautiful.
Do you have trouble forgiving—really reaching out to those who have hurt you, or being nice to those who have been nasty?
Do you find it hard to seek forgiveness?
Are you confused about its meaning, or about how to practise it? Is it always a good option? What about the fight for justice? 
If you struggle with any of these issues, read on. There is much all of us can learn—not from unrealistic theories, but from the example of those who were injured beyond words and yet chose to forgive—and are happy they did.
Precious lessons from the best human beings around. We can summarize them under ten “sutras.”
1. FORGIVING IS NOT THE SAME AS FORGETTING
Sister Rani Maria FCC was a young Catholic nun who worked for the poor in Central India with courage and deep love. She took up their cause, struggled to get them their rights, and travelled around to help. During one of these travels, as most of us in India know, she was stabbed to death in broad day light—a steep price to pay for her love for the poor and her commitment to justice.
Her murderer was caught and condemned to imprisonment.
While the murder of this innocent nun outraged many good people, what happened next was even more unexpected.
Her family—her mother and siblings—decided to forgive the man who had killed her. They visited him in jail. They told him things he could hardly believe—that they did not hate him, that they forgave him. As a mark of their acceptance of him, Rani Maria’s sister tied a ribbon around his wrist—a gesture that any Indian will understand. It is done by young women on their brother’s hand, as a sign of affection. She was now accepting her sister’s murderer as her own brother.
He would later say: “Only you Christians can do this.”
Rani Maria’s family will certainly never forget what was done to her. How can they? But they went beyond their pain and anger and reached out to the murderer in loving forgiveness.
We often confuse issues, saying, “I cannot forgive and forget.” We are asked to forgive; we are not asked to forget, or to pretend that nothing painful or unjust happened.
In fact, as the South African experience after the era of Apartheid showed—see the book review—we need to face the truth, not hide it. Healing requires that the atrocities committed and the emotions of the people affected need to be admitted and acknowledged.
Forgiving is not a sweet way of pretending that everything was fine, nor denying accountability.
Neither Gladys Staines—whose husband and sons were burnt alive by fanatics—nor Sr Rani Maria’s family “forgot” what happened. How can you ever forget such atrocities? We are talking about a heroic decision to go beyond your pain and reach out in forgiveness to those whose deeds were incredibly cruel.
2. ACTIONS MATTER MORE THAN EMOTIONS.
A Protestant pastor in Tamilnadu learnt a moving lesson on forgiveness from an illiterate woman.
Nithya was a landless labourer, whose family had suffered much under the village landlord. In a final act of cruelty, his henchmen had killed her son.
Later, the rich man’s son fell seriously ill, and needed blood transfusion. Among those who volunteered to donate blood for the boy was Nithya. Her pastor, who had baptized her, asked her, “Do you know for whom you are giving blood?” Yes, she knew. “Do you know what that family did to your family?” Yes, she knew that, too. “And yet, you are willing to donate blood for him?” Nithya’s simple and powerful answer: “Reverend, you taught us that this is what it means to be Christian.”
Forgiveness is not about how we feel. It is about what we do.
We will all have warmer feelings towards those who are nice to us. We will find it easier to help those we like, and those who are good to us. But forgiving means precisely that I choose to be good to the one who was nasty to me, not just to the ones I love. It is a tough and demanding decision. I may not feel like doing it at all. In fact, my feelings may even push me in the direction of revenge. If feelings dictated our decisions, we would be wonderfully nice to those we like, and nasty towards others who made us suffer. How would we then construct a better, more humane world?
3. FORGIVENESS REQUIRES PERSPECTIVE
Arnold, a young seminarian, came to me to complain about one of his professors. I told him, “We can talk about your hurt, if you think that is useful, or we can look at it differently.” “Differently? How?” “This way. You will spend some eight years here in the seminary, right?” “Right.” In these eight years, how many formators and professors will you meet?” “Some forty or fifty, or more.” “Right. Is it reasonable to expect that every single one of them is sweet and nice to you?” “You have a point. It is not.” “Not just that, Arnold. Would it be good for your growth if everyone around is easy on you? Isn’t it good for you that you also get some hard knocks?” “I agree,” Arnold said.
This is perspective. A hurt must be seen against the vast horizon of good we experience. On any given day, we experience much more kindness than unkindness. Most people are nice and good to us. Most of the time we are not suffering, physically or emotionally.
If we forget all this, and complain about the occasional hurt or perceived injustice, it shows lack of perspective. It is not a realistic way of looking at life.
We are not martyrs. We are not being ill-treated most of the time.
May we learn to count our blessings, thank the many people who are good to us, and situate the occasional hard experience in the midst of so much goodness.
So, too, for our growth and inner strength, it is good that we face hardships—material, emotional, financial. An easy life is neither the best, nor the most fruitful.
Another aspect of perspective is that we all need forgiveness. We have caused suffering. We have not always been thoughtful or kind or just.
4. FORGIVENESS HEALS AND PRESERVES US
Rachel, a Jewish woman interned in a concentration camp during World War II, witnessed inhuman cruelty—beatings, starvation, mass extermination of human beings. She had seen, for instance, newly born babies drowned in cold water, and adults sent to the gas chamber.
After the war, she was walking one day with other Jewish women in a German city, when they saw a woman pushing a baby carriage with a child in it. They recognized the woman: She had been a guard in their concentration camp, and a very cruel one. Urged by instinct, some of the women rushed to the woman, determined to harm her child. Rachel ran to them and told them, “We must not hurt this child. Otherwise, we will be like them.” A priest who was passing that way, wondered what the commotion was, and asked about it. Rachel told him. He turned to her in admiration and asked her: “How did you manage to preserve so much love in the midst of so much hatred?” Rachel’s moving reply: “It is not that I have preserved love; the truth is that love has preserved me.”
So true. Forgiveness heals and preserves us.
Bitterness, anger and thoughts of revenge poison our own lives and damage us. As the Buddha wisely observed, “Keeping anger is like carrying a burning coal in your hand and expecting the others to get hurt.”
James Herriott, a columnist of The Tablet of London, wrote about the death of a priest he knew. As he lay dying, this priest invited the young seminarians around to drink to his death! “I have lived a very happy life,” he told them, “I would like you to drink to a very happy death.” Herriott adds: “But, then, he had spent a life time forgiving those who had hurt him.”
Isn’t this the wisest and best way of living and dying? What is clever about filling our minds with angry thoughts, poison our heart with hatred, and living or dying in bitterness? Aren’t Rachel and the priest celebrating his death much better models?
5. ORDINARY “ANGELS” CAN CHALLENGE US
Dominic was eight years old when this happened. I heard this true story from his sister.
The evening prayers at home were over. The family was about to sit down for supper. Dominic did not get up to join them. His father turned to him and asked, “Son, aren’t you coming for supper?”
What happened next changed their family history.
Dominic told his dad, “Dad, you taught me the Our Father. We recite it every day. This evening, too. In it we are asking God to forgive us as we forgive those who have hurt us. But, I have heard that you and your older brother are not on talking terms for the past seventeen years.”
A stunned silence followed. Dominic’s parents sat up the whole night talking about their child’s comment.
The next day, they woke him up early, and told him, “Get up, get ready. You are coming with us.” The parents went, together with Dominic, to the house of the estranged brother whose house they had not stepped into for seventeen years.
The parents told Dominic to tell his uncle why they were there.
The two estranged brothers hugged each other, and wept.
Seventeen years of separation were healed that day.
God spoke through the mouth of an innocent child.
God may use any angel to invite or challenge me. I need to listen. I should not be defensive or angry when someone points out my areas of bitterness, or my broken relationships. We have much to gain, and very little to lose in taking the first step. Often, the injured person is waiting for the other to take the first step. If both simply wait, nothing good will happen. The distance will only increase.
May we listen to the Dominics God uses to push us towards reconciliation.
6. FAITH PLAYS A CRUCIAL ROLE
In 1996, a group of French Trappist monks who lived in a monastery in Algeria, and served the local people in simple medical matters, were murdered my Islamic militants. The family of the abbot, Fr Christian de Chergé, released to the public a letter he had written in 1993. In this very moving and beautiful letter, Fr Christian shows he knows the danger in staying on in Algeria. He knows he may become a victim of violence. And he prays for the person who may murder him, calling him a brother, a fellow sinner, whom one day he hopes to meet in paradise. Here are excerpts from his letter:
Facing a GOODBYE …
If it should happen one day—and it could be today—that I become a victim of terrorism… I would like my community, my Church and my family to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country…
I ask them to associate this death with so many other equally violent ones which are forgotten…. My life has no more value than any other…In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood…
I should like, when the time comes, to have a moment of spiritual clarity which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down…
And also you, my last-minute friend, who will not have known what you were doing:
Yes, I want this THANK YOU and this GOODBYE to be a “GOD BLESS” for you, too, because in God’s face I see yours.
May we meet again as happy thieves in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both.
AMEN! INSHALLAH!
What a way of facing danger and death! What a large heart filled with forgiveness! (There is a film based on this true story, which moved viewers to tears, “Of Gods and Men.” Read the whole text of Fr Christian’s letter on the Net.)
Even more heart-rending is the witness of a South African woman whose husband and son had been murdered under the infamous apartheid regime of South Africa.
In the court room, she came face to face with Inspector Van Breik, the police officer responsible for her husband’s inhumanly human death—he was burnt alive—and her son’s murder. The judge asked her, “Now that you know the facts, tell us: What is it you want?”
Her answer is beyond heroic.
“I want three things,” she said.
The first was to gather some mud from the river bank where her husband was burnt to death, and this way to give his remains a funeral.
The second: “Since I have no son now, I want Mr Van Breik to come to my house once a month, so that I can shower on him all the motherly love I have.”
Thirdly, she said, if someone can hold my hand and help me cross this room, I want to reach where Mr Van Breik is standing. I want to hug him, and tell him that, because of my faith in Jesus, I forgive him.
The police officer fainted.
Human beings are capable of incredible cruelty and meanness. We are also capable—as this South African woman or Fr Christian de Chergé show us—of heroic acts of forgiveness.
7. PRAYER IS A HUGE SUPPORT
Such heroism does not suddenly rise from nothing. A faith-fuelled vision is the result of careful cultivation. Prayer is what keeps it alive.
Here is what I learnt from a Salesian priest I have known for years.
When he was rector of a large seminary, he took a decision which some seminarians did not like. In anger, they calumniated him, thus spoiling his name. To spite him further, they put ink on his photo on the wall.
We found him very serene. He did not demand that they be punished or sent away. Asked about the reason for his calm demeanour, he said, “When someone speaks ill of me, I pray extra for that person. So, I have never lost my peace of mind.”
It is a salutary practice to pray for those who have hurt us, and for those we find it hard to love. They, too, play a providential role in our lives. They, too, are a part of God’s wise and loving plans for us.
Once a young man in Don Bosco’s care was extremely upset at the lack of respect someone had shown the saint. He repeatedly told Don Bosco, “That is not the way he should treat you. You must confront him. You should put him in his place.”
When the well-meaning but agitated young man went on insisting on punishment, Don Bosco told him, “Come, we shall go and punish him.” The young fellow was thrilled to hear this, and went with Don Bosco, expecting a humiliating show-down for the offender.
Don Bosco, instead, led his young friend to the chapel, and told him, “This is how we shall take revenge. Let us kneel down and say a prayer for him.”
Is this how we deal with our hurts?
8.FORGIVENESS HEALS GROUPS AND NATIONS
Forgiveness is not only a personal need or an interpersonal matter. Groups, institutions and nations need healing, just as individuals do.
It is easy to provoke violence or turn one group against another. It takes far greater skill and wisdom to bring people together, to turn warring factions into friends.
What the great Nelson Mandela did in South Africa is a model for this. He himself suffered much under the inhuman laws of apartheid. How would you react if you are arrested as a young man, imprisoned for decades and come out of jail in old age?
When his party won the elections, bringing down the apartheid regime of racial injustice, many Whites feared a violent backlash—a real bloodbath. Mandela, instead, convinced his supporters that what the nation needed was not revenge, but healing. So they set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, under the leadership of Archbishop Desmond Tutu—to face the truth and bring about reconciliation, not revenge. (See more in the BOOK REVIEW.)
This model was so inspiring and so effective that, during the violence in Northern Ireland, The Boston Globe published an editorial with the title, “What the Irish Can Learn from South Africa.”
Heads of institutions can set a healing tone through the way they face criticism and personal attacks. When an outgoing student of a well-known junior college in Turin, Italy, criticised the Salesians in pubic, the whole audience wondered how the rector would react. The rector, Fr Cimatti SDB—now a Servant of God—went up to the stage, hugged the boy, and told him, “Bravo! Well done! If you have the courage to speak up for your convictions, you will do lots of good.” The boy was so won over by Fr Cimatti’s response that he became a devout Catholic and a capable lawyer who defended the church in court.
9. FORGIVENESS REQUIRES ACTION FOR JUSTICE
Some see forgiveness as a weak option, or as a sign of cowardice. Far from it!
As Mahatma Gandhi insisted, it is better any day to defend one’s dear ones or country violently than to run away in fear. Violence is a better option than cowardice. In fact, he believed—something that many of us do not seem to know—that a violent person is more likely to turn to ahimsa (non-violence) than a coward.
All talk of forgiveness without a concern for justice is not only one-sided. It is dangerous. It will perpetuate the evil.
Whether between persons or between groups or among nations, justice must be guaranteed and promoted. Merely asking victims to forgive and keep quiet amounts to perpetuating violence and injustice.
Thus, in South Africa, the unjust apartheid regime had to be overthrown, and better structures put in place.
Or think of Martin Luther King’s unrelenting struggle for racial justice. He did not want handouts. He demanded the right to vote. Through the ballot, people would change unjust structures.
This goes for all forms of injustice—economic, racial or gender-based. While not giving in to revenge and violence, we need to take a stand for justice and bring about structural changes that ensure justice.
10.STEPS ON THE JOURNEY OF FORGIVENESS
Here are the steps on the journey of forgiveness.
- Admit your hurt. There is no need to feel bad about being angry. Thus, the victim of childhood sexual abuse may feel bad about one’s anger towards the parent who committed the crime, or about confronting the person. No, admit the hurt. No need to deny it. It happened. It is part of your history.
- Have perspective: See it against the background of the love you have received. Don’t exaggerate your suffering. Pain or rejection is not the only experience you have had, nor even the main part of your history. So, too, we should not blame (or hate) a whole group for the misdeeds of one or a few persons.
- Talk it over: With whom? First, share it with a person you trust, in confidence. Look at the best ways of handling your hurt. If need be—if, for instance, you have been emotionally damaged—you may need counselling and therapy.
- Should you talk it over with the person who hurt you? Do it, if it is possible and advisable. Or else, get someone else to confront that person. Narcissistic persons, for instance, will hardly ever admit their misdeeds. They need to be confronted—by a strong and confident person. Same with cruel people in authority, or deeply corrupt systems.
- Learn from those who have forgiven much. This is not just for edification. Such persons—like the ones I have quoted in this article—show us our inner resources and our own capacity to move from anger to healing.
- Pray: Take everything to God in prayer. There is nothing God cannot heal. In prayer, we receive light and strength—light to see our situation more objectively and strength to take the steps we need to take
- Justice issues? If there are justice issues—violation of one’s rights, or larger damage to a group, etc.—we need to take remedial measures. Thus, when the young barrister Mohandas Gandhi was thrown out of the first class compartment of a train in South Africa, one issue was the personal insult. The other is the larger issue of racial injustice, which needed to be tackled.
Conclusion
- Forgiveness is not easy. It can be hard, and, in some cases, even look impossible.
- It is possible—as people who have suffered much show us. Look at the true stories you have just read.
- It is necessary—for ourselves and for the world. Without it, we will destroy ourselves, as individuals, as families, as nations, as humankind.
- It leads to deep peace and healing.
- We need to act for justice, not for revenge.
- Without forgiveness and action for justice, there is no peace or happiness, no way to survive as human beings. Without it, there is no hope for the world. Bereft of the healing path of forgiveness, we poison our own life, and let hated enemies fill our inner space—not a wise way of living.
- When we refuse to forgive, we destroy the bridge we ourselves have to pass over. We all need forgiveness.
So, let go! Celebrate life! There is much more goodness and love than evil and hurts. As for the minor part played by those who hurt us, these wounds, too, can be healed, and turned into areas of strength and beauty. Learn the lessons, and move on. *
* For personal use and for talks or seminars, I warmly recommend the videos on forgiveness available on YouTube. There are moving true stories to be found there.
– Fr. Joe Mannath SDB is the National Secretary of CRI and the editor of this magazine
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