Father Thomas Welbers' Homily

If you listened carefully to the readings, it’s clear that there is a certain, shall we say, harshness or hard edge to God’s forgiveness. God’s love may be unconditional, but it appears that God’s forgiveness is not. There are a couple of conditions to God’s forgiveness. One is repentance; the other is our own willingness to forgive others as God forgives us.

But if we look closely and think clearly, those are not really conditions that God places on his willingness to forgive. They are rather conditions that our own human nature places on our ability to receive forgiveness. In addition to repentance and a willingness to forgive others, I would add another very necessary condition to our capacity to be forgiven, and that is our ability to forgive ourselves. Anybody who counsels those who are troubled and carrying heavy burdens runs into that a lot – how difficult it often is for someone who has done some terrible wrong to forgive themselves, and how impossible it is then to accept forgiveness from another, and even from God. But that’s a private matter, for confession and for counseling.

The more important consideration for us now, given the particular day this is, as well as the recent tragic recent events we all know too well, and so much that characterizes the times we live in – the important consideration for us now, is how do we hear and heed that call to forgive. This is a clear and repeated call by Jesus, not one that we can water down or avoid. Forgive, if you want to be forgiven. It’s a call that is difficult to follow at best, and one that many refuse even to hear.

Three months after the terrible attack of September 11, 2001, Pope John Paul II, in his message for the annual World Day for Peace, taught clearly that there can be no peace without justice, and there can be no justice without forgiveness. That’s a message that has gone largely unheard and unheeded on all sides of today’s conflicts. It’s kind of like what Chesterton said about Christianity itself – it hasn’t been tried and found wanting, it’s been found difficult and left untried. What did the Holy Father mean by linking peace and justice with forgiveness? Listen to what he says:

True peace … is the fruit of justice, that moral virtue and legal guarantee which ensures full respect for rights and responsibilities, and the just distribution of benefits and burdens. But because human justice is always fragile and imperfect, subject as it is to the limitations and egoism of individuals and groups, it must include and … be completed by the forgiveness which heals and rebuilds troubled human relations from their foundations. This is true in circumstances great and small, at the personal level or on a wider, even international scale. Forgiveness is in no way opposed to justice, as if to forgive meant to overlook the need to right the wrong done. It is rather the fullness of justice, … involving as it does the deepest healing of the wounds which fester in human hearts. Justice and forgiveness are both essential to such healing. [section 3]

While condemning terrorism, and affirming the right to protection, security, and defense, the Holy Father goes on to define forgiveness as the refusal to pay back evil with evil. He also makes it clear that forgiveness can’t be part of the social order until it takes root in us as individuals. How you and I forgive our enemies is the first and most basic concern for us.

With that in mind, and with all the thoughts and feelings of these days heavy on our hearts, I’d like to ask you to listen again to the inspired words of the ancient Hebrew wise man, Sirach, which we heard in the first reading. Close you eyes, and let them penetrate your heart.

What is forgiveness? Far from pretending that a wrong never happened, forgiveness means that we face whatever wrong is done squarely and acknowledge it for what it is, and then that we then refuse to perpetuate the wrong by revenge or hardness of heart. We can’t do that automatically. It’s important at this point to acknowledge our real inability to forgive, and to simply put it in God’s hands. Whatever hurt, pain, disappointment, fear or anger that we may be feeling, we need to say, “God, I give this over to you. I can’t take care of it, but I know that you can. What would you have me to do?” And then listen. This isn’t merely being passive – or passing the buck to God. In fact it’s just the opposite. This kind of prayer and this kind of listening has to give birth to action, but it’s action that realistically acknowledges God’s Lordship, and trusts that through God’s power we can do all things, even the impossible . . . like forgiving.

© 2005 Thomas Welbers