Category: WM Special

Last September 11, America and the world – people of all beliefs, ethnical groups and social origins – remembered and mourned the victims of the terrorist attacks. After 10 years, the emotions were still very high, and the memory very vivid of the true heroes who risked – and lost – their lives to save others. Father John Dear was among those who were in New York, in the place where the two iconic towers of the World Trade Center once stood, to give spiritual comfort to those in need. And right there he meditated on an obscure passage of the Gospel. Amid the rubble and the suffering, he was enlightened: “We can wake up, change our lives, disarm our hearts, turn back to the God of peace, renounce greed and war, and build a global grassroots movement of nonviolence for the coming of a new, more just, more peaceful world.”

Hatred has a long shelf life. Once it enters the human heart, it’s hard to get it out. It breeds destruction, discouragement, and hopelessness. If we are to save the planet, we must be bathed in forgiveness. This is the thesis of a psychologist who has been working with victims and intends to teach the principles of “Catholic yoga” in troubled places like Belfast or the Holy Land.

Forgiveness has the power to change the lives, both of the victim and of the offender. At a personal level, it implies also forgetting the offense. Because forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note, torn in two and burned up, so that it never can be shown against the wrongdoer.

Where there is no recognition of wrongdoing, or where there is no remorse and atonement, there is no duty to forgive. The offense will likely be repeated, if not by the same person, by others who are emboldened by the community’s lack of will to enforce its laws. But, more to the point, even where remorse compels forgiveness, the wrongdoing is not erased.