24th Sunday 2023
Ecclesiasticus 27:30-28:7; Romans 14:7-9; Matthew 18:21-35
Three words—four in Greek—are, I believe, crucial to today’s Gospel. They are the final words of the Gospel passage and they appear as “from your heart”. Much of the time, forgiveness is easy. Someone upsets us, probably in a fairly minor way; they apologise, and all is right again.
Sometimes, though, the hurt goes much deeper. It may have been intentional, or it may be the result of insensitivity, or even a misunderstanding, but it wounds us in the depths of our being. The other person apologises. We seem to accept the apology, but how genuine, how heartfelt, is that acceptance?
I will mention two examples, similar in origin. Twice I have been approached by victims of sexual abuse. One was a schoolgirl, the other a middle-aged woman. In both cases, the abuser was the person’s father. The adult lady had, over a period of time, come to a degree of forgiveness, but was deeply hurt by her father’s ongoing dishonesty. It was particularly painful to hear him described in glowing terms at his funeral, seemingly a model citizen and a pillar of the parish, his treatment of his daughter hidden under a veneer of respectability.
In the girl’s case, her father was unmasked, and underwent a term of imprisonment. However, although admitting abusing her sister, he continued to deny his offences against the girl herself: this, she subsequently told me, was the worst wound of all, causing her to wish that she had never revealed her suffering—though, had she not done so, her sister’s child would have been a third victim.
Is it possible for the victims of abuse to forgive their abusers? Should they? I cannot answer those questions, but it does seem that, without an admission of the fault, forgiveness is inevitably limited.
Few of us, please God, will have undergone the horror of abuse. What about less heinous offences? The poet Philip Larkin was not referring to abuse when he pointed an accusatory finger at parents in general in his poem “This be the verse” which begins “They [expletive deleted] you up, your mum and dad”, a wry and indeed cynical expose of parenthood, which concludes that parental damage is inevitable.
From personal experience, I can deny this, but I have been shocked to learn of the childhood problems of many of my friends, whose parents were far from ideal, yet who themselves, in general, learned to manage things better when they themselves had children. Thus, the negative experiences had some positive effects, and their response to their parents has frequently been an acceptance that no one is perfect, and a forgiveness of parental faults which even Larkin himself admitted were unintentional.
One important consideration is that forgiveness liberates not only the one who is forgiven but, perhaps even more so, the one who forgives. The author of the Book of Ecclesiasticus speaks of resentment, which he describes as a foul thing. Resentment, which frequently arises from an unwillingness to forgive, eats away at us, damages us, imprisons us. It may hurt the person whom we refuse to forgive: it certainly hurts us.
A former Vicar General of this Diocese (not to be confused, by the way, with the Bishop’s Secretary) hurt a considerable number of priests during his time in office. I heard second hand that, following his retirement as a result of ill health, he had acknowledged that people had been hurt, and had said that he regretted it, but this did not penetrate to my heart. I remained angry, and concluded that I would not be able to attend his funeral when it happened, as it would infuriate me to hear positive things said about him.
Around a fortnight ago, I attended a priest’s funeral at which this former VG was present. He is old and frail now, and seems to have recovered some of the more attractive aspects of his personality, which were overlaid during his time in office. As I helped him down some steps, I felt all the anger and bitterness which I felt seep away, a process completed at the graveside, when he answered my mutter that there seemed no sign of the Salve Regina being sung, by whispering from behind me “You start it!”, which I did. There was a new and tremendous freedom in letting all the anger go. I shall be able to attend his funeral, and will have no objection if he is extolled to the skies.
Up to now, I have been speaking in purely human terms. In the last analysis, we are talking about something divine. As both the Old Testament author and Our Lord point out, God is the author of forgiveness. He forgives us much, and we must imitate Him.
