Seeking Forgiveness

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. (Matt. 5:23-24)

The word religion comes from the Latin religare meaning to relate. Christianity consists of two types of relation: to love God above everything and everyone, and to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. These two commandments are inseparable both in theory and in practice.

It is not possible to establish a relationship with God when I have broken relations with others. As long as I do not repair these broken relations with my neighbours, God will turn His back on me; therefore, all my efforts to relate with Him will be counterproductive, that is, my efforts to establish a relationship with God will amount to nothing as long as I am angry with my neighbours. Furthermore, to paraphrase St. John, how can you ask God for forgiveness whom you cannot see, if you do not ask for forgiveness from your neighbour whom you can see.

Inevitability of conflict in human relations
Conflicts are unavoidable in human relations. Conflicts divide people into aggressors and objects of aggression. In order for peace to be restored, the aggressors need to ask for forgiveness, while the ones who have been aggressed need to forgive. To forgive and to ask for forgiveness are therefore two sides of the same coin. This is because there are times when we are the aggressors and at others we are the objects of someone’s aggression, for throughout our lives there will be plenty of occasions for all of us to ask for forgiveness and to forgive. For some it is more difficult to forgive, for others, to ask for forgiveness.

When forgiveness is not asked for or granted, the aggressor and the aggressed cannot move on and end up tied to a past that both refuse to leave behind, resulting in the pair living in a condition of continuous present perfect, that is, in a state where the action that started in the past continues into the present.

Those who do not ask for or grant forgiveness hold a grudge forever. Something that has happened in the past at a particular place is happening again and again at all times and all places since the feelings felt there and then are still being felt here and now. The offender who has not asked for forgiveness is still offending and now not only the one whom he offended but also himself, since not having asked for forgiveness has made him a victim of his own pride. The offended who is not able to forgive, on the other hand, not only is still being offended but is also paying for something that he has not done.

Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. (Eph. 4:26-27)

An offense done in the past should have remained in the past; as St. Paul advises the Ephesians not to let even one day go by without interchanging forgiveness between the offender and the offended; and if we let one day go by then more likely a second day will also go by and then as St. Paul warns, we give an opportunity for evil to infest, as we start to nurse our grudge thus infecting the whole of our person.

When the offender and the offended do not take the responsibility to face each other in forgiveness, the offense nursed by both grows and drains them of their energy; it then becomes omnipresent in the mind and heart of the pair, hurting and bothersome like a pebble in the shoe. It places the two in an unstable climate of cold war with the possibility of an imminent conflict always likely to erupt.

To forgive and to forget
Oftentimes we hear the expression that the one who has not forgotten has not forgiven. In a way it is true if by not forgetting it means that we are still resentful and still holding a grudge. Does this mean that in order to really forgive, we have to have an amnesia of our past or have a sort of selective Alzheimer?

The answer lies in the different ways of remembering the offense; first, a forgiven offense comes less frequently to mind than an unforgiven one; second, a forgiven offense when it does come to mind does not generate the negative feelings it previously used to do, it acts now like a deactivated virus. It does not have the ability to evoke anger, hatred or resentment in the offended towards the offender. On the other hand, an unforgiven offense comes to mind often and every time it does, it makes the hatred and resentment grow in intensity.

The ball is in your court
“A thief believes that everyone is a thief” – Most offenders project their personality and capability over the ones they have offended and do not apologize because they are afraid of not being forgiven. Since the offense brings pain to both parties, and chains both to the past, each one should be made responsible for his own part in the conflict, and do what is expected of him to resolve it without being calculative about what the other one is doing to help the cause.

Our enemies are not those who hate us but rather those whom we hate – Most of the time the offended stops being angry at us the moment we ask for forgiveness and the relation is restored and oftentimes the friendship even grows deeper.

I know my offense, and recognize where I have failed like the prodigal son. I make the first move to apologize to the one I have offended. If that person forgives me then all is fine, but even if I am not forgiven, it is still equally okay; the ball is now in his court even if he refuses to forgive me; the stress, the anxiety and the remorse from the guilt that used to surround me disappears from my mind and heart because I have unloaded it and freed myself of it by doing what was required of me and what was within my reach. I cannot force the other person to forgive me; if he decides to stay in the past then he will be there alone without me.

To ask for forgiveness is not humiliating
For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Lk. 14:11) – Whoever admits his mistake and apologizes in a way is humbling himself, but this humility will surely lead to exaltation. However, whoever does not admit his mistake and does not apologize is acting out of pride, self-exaltation and arrogance which will surely lead to humiliation.

Oftentimes what prevent us from asking for forgiveness is the fear of being humiliated by the person we have offended, but in reality when we humble ourselves by apologizing for our offense we are placed in better light in the eyes of the person we offended.  On the other hand, when we do not admit to our mistakes and do not apologize we might feel good within the walls of our pride and arrogance, but in reality we look pathetic and are downgraded in the eyes of the person to whom we owe an apology. If we manage to put aside our natural feelings and embrace the reality, we will all be better off, more in peace and in harmony with both God and our neighbours.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Saints are those who see themselves as sinners

Pope Francis making his confession

A Rabbi used to say that the sinners were closer to God than the righteous. And he explained it by saying that as a means of communication, there exists a thread that links our head to the hand of God. Each time we sin the thread breaks and as the result so does our communication with God. But each time we recognize our sin, and we repent, a knot is made to tie the broken threads together thus restoring the communication. When by chance we return to sin and again we repent, another knot is made; and as we keep sinning and repenting, the thread becomes every time shorter. In this way the Rabbi concluded, sinners are closer to God than the righteous.

The declared saints
The Church has a formal process that tends to be time consuming to declare someone a saint. First, responding to the petition of the faithful because of “fame of sanctity” of that particular person, the biography of the respective candidate is analyzed with a fine comb: virtues and flaws, writings, sermons, works. If the prospects are good, a postulator is appointed and the candidate is declared “Servant of God”.

The postulator then examines carefully the life of the candidate for sainthood and presents his conclusions to the Pope who declares the candidate “Venerable” meaning that the Servant of God lived the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, in a heroic way.

Since the cause of beatification and canonization appears at times to be a tribunal case, beside the figure of the postulator stands the caricatured figure of “the devil’s advocate”. During the entire process, while the postulator finds ways to prove the virtues of the candidate, the devil’s advocate, who in our civil process is the district attorney or the prosecutor, seeks to remove the importance placed on the virtues by evidencing the flaws of the candidate.

The next step is beatification. If the candidate was a martyr, and has been sufficiently proven that he gave his life in defense of the faith, the pope declares him Blessed. If the candidate was not martyred then heaven must decide, that is, the postulator must present a miracle, which must be proven to have taken place through the intercession of the Venerable.

Lastly, the Blessed is declared Saint with the accreditation of a second miracle, which proves that the candidate is already enjoying the Beatific Vision. To him or her a feast day is assigned in the Church calendar, and he or she can be declared the patron saint of parish churches and the faithful can freely and without restriction, celebrate and honour the Saint.

The undeclared saints
“Not all those who live in a psychiatric residence are crazy and not all who are crazy live in a psychiatric residence”, says a Spanish proverb. After seeing how they have hastened some canonizations in recent times to satisfy the wishes or conveniences of some, I dare to use the same expression about the saints… not all who have been declared saints are indeed saints, and not all who are saints have been declared such.

There were, there are, and there will always be people who lived like saints without ever been noticed and declared such; for this reason, the Church created a solemn day to celebrate the never declared saints, that is, those whom the Eucharistic prayer refers to as those “whose faith and dedication to your service is well known”. They are given honour and veneration like the unknown soldiers of wars.

Saint is synonym for Christian
All the saints greet you, especially those of the emperor’s household. (Phil. 4:22)

To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. (Col. 1:2)

The disciples were called Christians, first in Antioch, says the book of The Acts of the Apostles. It was a name given by the outsiders, that is, by those who did not follow Christ and as such it was meant to have negative connotations associated with that name. “Christians” was not the name by which the early Christians were known. As we can see from the second text, Christians who were well known for treating each other as brothers and sisters in Christ were addressed as saints and faithful.

To call someone a saint when officially not yet true, according to the process described above, brings with it an implicit calling to sanctity. For this same reason we call Christians those who strive to be like Christ, such as St. Paul – when he said, “It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20) – but it does not mean that they are already there.

Saints are those who recognize themselves as sinners
“He who stops wanting to be better, stops being good”. (St. Bernard)
There are two types of people: those who are not aware of their faults and do nothing to be better, and those who are aware of their faults and make efforts to be better every day.

Those who do nothing to improve themselves do not stay always the same, on the contrary, each day they become progressively worse. In the moral life, like in the nature, there is a law of gravity; whoever is not going up is coming down; whoever, aware of his imperfections, does nothing to be better each day, will not remain as he is but will go from bad to worse; whoever does not progress will regress.

When I lose the awareness that I am a sinner, then I am truly lost. St. Francis of Assisi, was perhaps the one person who came the closest to almost fully imitate Christ to the point of being called the “Alter Christus” and despite being in life already regarded as a great saint by his companions, he saw himself as a sinner and used to run down the streets of Assisi like a madman shouting, “I am a great sinner”. In fact, the truly wise judge themselves as ignorant, only the ignorant believe themselves to be wise; the true saints judge themselves as sinners, only some sinners believe they are saints.

I may have come far on the path of holiness, but what makes me grow even more, what makes me progress even more is to be able to find sins, defects, and imperfections in my life. For this, all I need is to refine my self-consciousness by making it sharper with the Gospel and surely I will always find something I need to change in myself. The true saints do not see themselves as such; on the contrary, they consider themselves sinners.

The true saints, after having converted from great sins, continually seek, in their conscience, other offenses that escape the examination of conscience of less holy people. They are really nitpicky in examining the bottom of their conscience, finding always something to accuse themselves, therefore they are always in a continuous process of conversion.

In the parable of the sower, the soil is to be blamed when nothing grows; a good soil is that which brings growth, it does not matter that it be 30% or 60% or 100%. What is important is that it produces, a bit or a lot, the quantity is of a lesser importance. We are not called to be the best, but we are called to give our best. Similarly, in the parable of the talents, what is important is not to hide the talent but to be accountable for it, the percentage of the profit being secondary.

homo simul iustus et peccator – On the path to sanctity the human person is and will always be both a saint and a sinner at the same time. To be holy is to walk on this path where today we are better than we were yesterday but not as good as we will be tomorrow. More than a state of being or a goal, to be holy is a process of perfection impelled and motivated by the ever presence of our consciousness of being a sinner.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC