Throughout human history, there has probably never been a harder word to say than sorry.
It has a habit of catching easily in the throat, and sometimes refuses to dislodge itself no matter how hard we may want it to. It takes a certain courage to say sorry, and very deep humility whereby we acknowledge the feelings and dignity of the other person above our own feelings of pride.
The statements of repentance released by Pope John Paul II and the Australian Catholic bishops were, I felt, one of the most compassionate and positive acknowledgments of, not only past failings, but the realisation that the Church, and indeed, the whole world is made up of human beings, and as such, there will always be a large degree of fragility, and vulnerability amongst its people – the very reason that Christ gave such importance to the commandment to love one another.
Many years ago, a priest gave a homily on forgiveness. He spoke of a person angrily lashing out and striking another in the face which would result in a nasty black eye. The person, ashamed of his outburst, apologised and asked for forgiveness. Not an option – the eye was so black and so sore that he didn’t think he would ever be able to forgive. Seems reasonable. Saying sorry doesn’t lessen the pain, or heal the eye immediately, and every look in the mirror confirmed that he was justified in holding on to that anger. The real danger, continued the priest, is in nurturing the black eye, long, long after the bruising and the soreness have disappeared.
I thought about this homily for a long time. I thought particularly of people who had suffered sexual or physical abuse, and how hard it must be for them to move on with their lives. By its very nature abuse undermines a person’s ability to be whole, or feel wholesome and worthy. It takes away their confidence and leaves them with deep feelings of guilt and shame. Like all of us, I have read and heard many sad stories and they are all the same, reflecting the above feelings, so I wondered was nurturing a fair word? Would they not be better called “bad memories”?
It was only after praying about this that I realised what the priest was trying to say. Healing is not possible without forgiveness. Forgiveness is not possible while we continue to hold on to the experience which may have been long ago. The pain within may never really diminish, but to enable us the freedom to move on, we have to forgive, truly and deeply forgive, so that our lives be spent, not in bitterness, but allowing the peace of healing to enter into our hearts. While the black eye may surface in our mind every now and again, and that memory evokes pain, we learn to not spend our time dwelling on it, and allowing it to be important.
If we find forgiveness too hard, we only have to think about Jesus and all he suffered. He, like most people mentioned in the statement of repentance, was innocent, and all that happened to him, the Son of God, was reprehensible, and yet he the man forgave all, as he God continues to forgive all. To truly live the Gospel is to base our lives on Christ. Easy when things are going good, but so very hard when painful experiences cloud our mind and pain is never far from our hearts.
The statement of repentance has opened the way for all of us to think and pray about changes in our lives in this wonderful Year of Great Jubilee 2000. Released as it was at the beginning of Lent gives us even more reason to ponder on these things Ð to pray for the courage to accept the apology of our Pope and the Catholic Church as a sincere and humbling plea for reconciliation between all its peoples – for those in deep pain to pray for the strength and courage to forgive and allow God’s beautiful grace to bring peace and healing love to troubled hearts. I firmly believe that if we are able to hold out our hand lovingly in forgiveness for the failings of others in our life, we may be pleasantly surprised as to just who takes our hand in his own.
