By Father Rich Tomkosky
There is a particular sin that prevents many otherwise good people from growing into saintly people, namely, the sin of being full of anger/grudges/bitterness or any combination of those things and having a hard time forgiving those who have hurt them. We see this in far too many families who have dealt with divorce, infidelity, and just overall selfishness and dysfunctionality, and not living the Catholic faith with generosity.
In the Gospel, we hear of the absolute necessity of forgiveness, in order to be a true disciple of Jesus and to have inner peace in this life and salvation in the next. Remember forgiveness is a divine gift. To be able to forgive someone, who has hurt us badly, especially if it is a close family member or former friend, from the heart, is a grace we cannot achieve on our own. Our natural tendency is to want to take revenge or to at least hold a grudge and bitterness against the individual or individuals who have hurt us. Is there a person or several people, family or otherwise, that we need to forgive from our heart, TODAY? This may be something we have held onto for years, or have buried deep down in our soul, and it is like a festering wound! Be honest. If we are willing to forgive, and mention it in Confession ASAP, God will do the rest in terms of healing our heart and hopefully bring about a conversion in the people we are forgiving and in us.
Remember the act of forgiving someone is an act of the will and not a feeling and doesn’t depend on the other person’s response – even though it is better if there is a true reconciliation. However, if we run with our feelings in this area, we will NEVER forgive anyone. If we will to forgive someone, hopefully the feelings will follow later; but if they do not, this is an opportunity to give a particularly heavy Cross to Jesus in love for the conversion of all sinners as Our Lady of Fatima asked us to do.
A spiritual tip: whenever thoughts or feelings of resentment crop up toward the person(s) who has hurt us deeply, say a prayer for the person as soon as we become conscious of the thoughts, and then move on. If we do this on a regular basis in our life, not only are we growing in the grace of forgiveness but in the virtue of charity, which is the heart of holiness.
To love our neighbor as ourselves is the holy requirement God puts on human love – just like I said last week the holy requirement to fully receive God’s love is accepting and growing in the gift of Faith which He offers to all people if they are open to it. We do have to pray with persistence and offer acts of spiritual sacrifice and penance for our loves ones who right now seemingly have no faith for whatever reason – ask Saint Monica and Our Lady to help with that difficult process.
Two indispensable aids in this process of forgiveness are primarily the Sacrament of Confession as the healing graces contained therein can enable us to forgive ourselves if we have done something seriously evil in the past, and also forgive the most grievous offenses committed against us by others, and fill us with great inner divine peace after Confession is completed; but the second is also helpful: having a sense of humor about the foibles of human nature. A good book to help us deal with anger in a holy way is called Overcoming Sinful Anger: How to Master Your Emotions and Bring Peace to Your Life by Father Thomas Morrow.
Forgiveness not only leads to peace in this life, it, along with repentance are the keys leading to eternal salvation if lived in faith. Think for a moment of death. At that time, we will have to give to God an account of our love or conversely our hatred which is in our hearts toward God and/or our fellow man.
The words contained in the Our Father: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” should strike us to the heart. It is a conditional statement. We are saying, Heavenly Father, only forgive my trespasses (sins) to the extent that I forgive those who trespass (sin) against me. Do we realize the implication of that? If we don’t forgive others, Our Heavenly Father will not forgive us!
Remember Heaven is a place of love and forgiveness; Hell is a place of hatred and vengeance. We must overcome any hatred or lack of forgiveness in our hearts or WE RISK LOSING HEAVEN! WE MUST FORGIVE OTHERS FROM OUR HEART! Also, there are many souls in Purgatory for sins of anger – and confessed sins of hatred – that they didn’t make full reparation for in this earthly life; and so, they have to make hard reparation there. See the books on Purgatory Hungry Souls and My Conversations with Poor Souls for more insights on this. God bless you.
Father Rich Tomkosky is the Pastor of Saint Thomas the Apostle Parish in Bedford and Seven Dolors of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Beans Cove.
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