On Forgiveness and Communion
Man asking forgiveness and forgiving his debtors by Wierix, Johannes - National Gallery of Denmark, Denmark - Public Domain.
Until recently, I truly thought I had no issues with forgiveness. I had no sense of felt anger against my immediate or extended family, or my friends for that matter. I had no sense of grudges. I truly believed I simply desired the best for everyone.
And yet, at the time – three years ago – my life was relatively devoid of close associations. Apart from my then-boyfriend, with whom I was intensely close, and in a very sinful entanglement, I wasn’t particularly close to anyone, including the abovementioned immediate and extended family, and friends, to whom I supposedly felt such bonhomie. My friends would often complain about how hard it was to stay connected with me, how they never heard from me. I haven’t seen my father since I was a teenager, and my mother passed away years ago, so my only immediate family is my two brothers. While they were the people I was closest to in the world (apart from my boyfriend) my interactions with them were often tense and left me angry, sometimes extremely so. While at first I would long to spend time with them, when we’d spend a day together I’d find myself irritable, dwelling on past hurts, often arguing and frustrated and itching to leave by the end of the evening.
What was wrong with this picture? It’s easier to feel like you have no grudges in your heart if you keep everyone at a distance and withdraw from your relationships. As an adult child of divorce, I saw domestic violence in my home, and grew up with great animosity in my extended family. I did not see forgiveness growing up – only lingering resentments that often led family gatherings to end in explosive arguments. Old wounds never healed in my family: they festered and grew more painful with time. I think I learned very early that what’s “safe” is to keep people at arm’s length (or further, thank you!).
In response to these family lessons, my version of “forgiveness” was simple: never let anyone get close enough to hurt me. But the Lord broke through my defenses and gradually brought me back to Him through a reversion to the Catholic faith. I began to learn things about God’s plans for us that I was never taught in CCD classes. When I first attended the Life-Giving Wounds retreat, my heart overflowed with awe and gratitude as I heard the truth about God’s intention for the love between mother, father, and child. The cynical and defensive posture I took towards apparently happy, intact families (“that can’t be real – they’ve probably got some sick skeletons in their closets”) – was replaced with a warm receptivity to believing that true love between man and woman, and within the family, was not only possible, it was what God desires for us. I started to believe that God calls us in our totality – body, mind, soul, heart, and spirit – to image His trinitarian love, to image total communion and self-gift.
My conversion continues, and it’s often quite painful. As the Lord has called to me to turn my life over to Him, I’ve become progressively more aware of just how far my heart has to go. My desire to turn inward, to narcissism, solitude, and the safety of isolation, is still quite present. Old habits die hard. And yet a year ago I chose, through the grace of God, to move into a shared home with other Catholics. It was an enormous risk: I love silence and solitude. But I also know we are called to communion, and that the life I was living was one that seemed pointed away from community and towards narcissism and isolation. What was the “end-game” of how I was living? It looked dark and lonely. I imagined that moving in with others would help me reach the communion ideal I had in my mind’s eye.
Instead, moving in with others was intensely difficult for me. I can’t run and hide anymore from the daily trials with others, the daily crosses that in the past would have remained in my heart and caused me to avoid interacting with people, fooling myself into thinking I had forgotten them. I see how God is using this as a school of forgiveness: He is inviting me to see my need for mercy – for myself, and for others. Over this past year, as it became clear that I do struggle with anger and unforgiveness in my heart in the day-to-day struggles with roommates, the Lord invited me to step up my time with Him, coming to weekly confession to receive His grace and forgiveness. Each time the difficulties pass, there are joys and gifts, great and small. I have to learn to forgive daily, and ultimately, God is teaching me to love and cherish some of the things about people that I used to “need” to forgive. He does this slowly but surely.
Yet, as this happens, I see deeper places in my heart that are dark and filled with shame; places that used to be hidden by daily irritations. Those irritations – distractions, really – are now gone, but the darkness that caused me to be mistrustful remains. Little by little, each day that I live in community with others, I learn where there is still unforgiveness, captivity and shame in my heart. And each day, the Lord shows me the miracle in which He smooths out the rough and jagged areas in my heart, allowing me to be more peaceful, loving, kind and forgiving with those around me – and with myself. I pray and trust that in this “school of forgiveness” the Lord is teaching me how I might forgive and even reunite with some of the family and friends in my life that I lost touch with over the years when my habit was to retreat into solitude.
A wise priest once told me that Jesus continually calls us deeper into conversion, to show us the areas of our heart where we are still captive, because He longs to set us free.
Prayer
O St. Maria Goretti, beautiful model of forgiveness, pray for me.
Even at the age of 11, you did not withhold forgiveness from your attacker. You didn’t wish him unwell. On the contrary, you wanted Heaven for him. You loved him in that way. Pray for me, that I, too, will be able to love my enemies like you did. Pray that I will want Heaven for them.
Please pray that it will become easier and easier to forgive those who have hurt me and those who will hurt me.
Please pray for my own healing from these past hurts so that I can move forward and offer forgiveness.
Please also pray for (mention your intentions here).
(The above prayer was found online here.)
Saint Maria Goretti, patron saint of forgiveness, please pray that I, too, may be able to forgive those who wounded me.
About the Author
Magda Rosario (pseudonym) is an alumna of the Life-Giving Wounds retreat.
Reflection Questions for Small Groups or Individuals
In the past, have you, like Magda, not let people get close enough to hurt you?
What has it been like for you learning to forgive others? Has God put you in a “school of forgiveness?“
Is God “teaching [you] to love and cherish some of the things about people that [you] used to ‘need’ to forgive?” If so, what are some of those things?