Pope Francis, in the bull Misericordiae Vultus n. 9, comment: "Forgiveness of offenses becomes the most evident expression of merciful love and for us Christians it is an imperative that we cannot do without. [Forgiveness is a force that revives us to a new life and gives us the courage to look to the future with hope.. Forgiveness is, therefore, an eminent expression of the works of Mercy, something like the heart of Mercy.
When I ask people what they are looking for when they approach the sacrament of confession, the answers are usually along the following lines: to start over, to take a weight off my shoulders, to regain peace of conscience, to find peace, to seek strength and consolation, to receive good advice... I would now like to give an example related to the university world, a time when young people are very much in love and male/female relationships are very intense. Well, let's imagine that there is a girl who takes very good notes; on seeing this, a boy befriends the girl in order to get those notes. However, there is someone who tries to ask for the notes in order to attract the girl's attention and make friends with her, so that she will notice him. These are two very different positions, and it seems obvious to me which one would please the girl more, at least from the point of view of female self-esteem.
When in confession we seek strength, peace of mind, advice..., then what we are looking for are "notes". But Jesus, in confession, tells us: you ask me for notes, but I give you something much more valuable: myself, to live in your heart and let you live in mine. It is God whom we should seek when we go to confession.
Confession is not a mere laundry either. This happens when we go to render an account, to have our stains removed without a true conversion of heart, because we do not understand sin as a lack of love and confession as an act of love.
Know how to love. Primerear
The dynamics of love has, among others, two dimensions: the other and the good of the other. True love needs both. Whoever seeks and desires only the other person, but does not at the same time seek the other's good, would be pure selfishness; and conversely, if he were willing to seek his good but did not desire his closeness, such dedication would become a humiliation.
A graphic way of defining love would be the mutual belonging of one in the other. That is to say: you are my life, and therefore, if I do not have you in my heart I lack something, I cannot be fully me, and I cannot be happy. On Evangelii Gaudium (n. 24) there are some words that form a sequence to understand the different demands of love: "primerear, get involved, accompany, fructify and celebrate".. They are a very accurate way to describe love.
Who should begin to forgive: the victim or the aggressor? In the practice of our behavior we often find that if the one who has offended us comes to ask for forgiveness, then we would be willing to forgive him, but self-love prevents us from starting the path of reconciliation. However, what happens is that if we are not able to take the initiative, this means that we do not care about the other person. Here it is appropriate to bring up that word that Pope Francis often mentions: "primerear"to take the initiative. If I am not willing to take the initiative, it means that what you offer me does not interest me; in short, I am not interested in you, and I have stopped loving. Whoever is not capable of taking the initiative in forgiveness, does not love. Forgiveness, on the other hand, follows the logic that "having you in my heart is valuable to me"; and the one who loves the most, the one who has the biggest heart, must begin to ask for forgiveness.
Recognition
When the other person comes to ask for forgiveness from the heart, you realize that what he or she is saying is: what you offer me-your friendship, your affection, your closeness-is valuable to me, a gift and a source of joy. In this sense, asking for forgiveness is a way of valuing the other.
Not being able to primerear to reconcile with the other manifests a humiliating indifference. To ask for forgiveness, on the contrary, is one of the most beautiful ways to show the one we have offended that we need him, that we want to have him close to us, that he is dear to us. Asking for forgiveness is the recognition of the other as valuable.
Forgiveness also includes the recognition of the offender. When the offender comes to ask for forgiveness, the offended one, in welcoming this initiative, in fact shows his true love: that you come is also a gift for me. When you were far away I also suffered; I longed to have you in my heart, thank you for coming. Welcoming forgiveness is, therefore, the most beautiful way to exalt the other. Forgiveness becomes the act by which we restore the other's dignity in our eyes. Your dignity is to live in my heart. This is what the Lord tells us whenever he forgives us. Forgiveness (being forgiven) always exalts, never humiliates either one or the other. In forgiveness, as in love, no one loses and everyone wins. Let us remember the parables of the merciful father, of the lost sheep.
Acknowledging guilt
The recognition of guilt is necessary to be forgiven. Forgiveness requires for the "purification of the memory" that the guilt is recognized and the request for forgiveness is made explicit, otherwise the situation will not be fixed. To ask for forgiveness it is not strictly necessary to verbally manifest the guilt, but it is necessary to clearly show repentance. Those who suffer from excessive self-love find it difficult to ask for forgiveness explicitly, often using non-verbal language, which is sufficient for those who know them.
In the face of the forgiveness offered, the recognition of guilt makes it possible for it to disappear immediately. For this reason, it is necessary that we never justify a fault, however small it may be, for this prevents it from being overcome, and it will remain latent. By recognizing it, forgiveness will also reach its fullness; the evil will be destroyed, and nothing will remain of it. Sin, evil, distances hearts, but once we have forgiven each other, there is nothing to distance us from each other: forgiveness is the most powerful force in history in the fight against evil.
I remember a man who was dying. He asked a priest he knew to mediate with his son because they had not spoken to each other for more than thirty years. They made the necessary arrangements and the son agreed to visit his sick father. When they entered the hospital room, the father stood up, hugged him, and they both began to cry... and there was nothing left of the evil that the two of them had caused each other over so many years. We recognize, we embrace each other and nothing remains.
He who holds a grudge in his heart has not truly forgiven. Indeed, he who does not forgive will never be truly free. God gave us the freedom to love, and the inability to forgive manifests a lack of freedom. There is no freer person than the one who is able to forgive. The human being should have a good drainage incorporated in his heart so that nothing remains of resentment, hatred, malice or bad feelings towards the other. The best way to achieve this is to look to Christ and learn to love.
Guilt and evil as an offering
The Lord, whenever we ask for forgiveness, answers us: "Your evil is a gift to me, because it serves me to show you that I love you also with all your evil; that I love you much more than you thought I did, and the evil you have committed is now, for me, the means I have to put you on record that I love you much more.".
In fact, some define mercy in light of the etymology of the words that make up the term: "You give me your misery and I offer you my heartbeat". Evil then becomes an offering, a way and a real manifestation of my love for the other.
Forgiveness, the great destroyer of evil
Human beings are made in the image of God, and He is Love. Our dignity and vocation are at stake in love. We are made to love and to be loved. We also know that through original sin the Evil One installed in the world the two most powerful destructive bombs in history: pride and selfishness; they are the denial of love, of our dignity and of our vocation. Both attitudes mean saying to the other: I don't care about you, I'm not interested in you. We go from being loved to being abused or used. These two bombs undo everything, because they have a great destructive capacity: individuals, families, peoples and nations, and the Church herself.
But at that very moment, God instituted the great neutralizer, the antivirus, against all this destructive force: forgiveness. Thanks to forgiveness, humankind has a well-founded reason for hope. All the evil of history, placed before the gaze of God who pronounces his forgiveness, is reduced to nothing, is annihilated. That is why the world always has hope. Now, before this beautiful truth of a God who forgives unconditionally, no one can despair, considering his life a failure, because every life of every person, through the mystery of the Cross of Christ, is the recipient of that "I forgive you" by which all evil is annihilated.
Evil, we can affirm, has a limit, and this is the mercy of God; while, for its part, God's mercy is infinite. God, in the words of St. Teresa, "neither tires nor gets tired"He always has the last word in history through his forgiveness.
The joy of interpersonal communion
The final point of forgiveness is the joy and happiness of knowing that I am loved by those I love. Interpersonal communion, having those we love in our hearts, feeling loved by those we love, is what makes us happy. Therefore, to have God, Love, in one's heart is the greatest gift that exists on earth and in eternity. Whoever has God, has everything. God alone is enough.
On the contrary, he who does not forgive will never be happy. Pride and selfishness make happiness on earth impossible. It is urgent to transmit a great lesson: the importance of the family and of looking at and welcoming Christ in order to teach people to love.
How many times should we forgive?
Peter must have had a huge heart when he asks if he should forgive up to seven times, a number not only large, but related to fullness. Jesus, however, reminds us that he must forgive "always," seventy times seven.
There is a double reason why we must always forgive. First, because the day I say "I no longer forgive," I am also saying that I no longer care about you, that I no longer love you, which means that I no longer recognize you as a person, whose dignity is to be loved for oneself. At the same time, when I do not forgive, we do not live according to our vocation, which is to love. Non-forgiveness implies a double injustice. Another thing is the necessary help of grace, without which we are not able to forgive.
And the second reason is that, if I say "enough, I no longer forgive you", in fact I have never really loved you, because I have only been willing to forgive you up to this limit; I have not accepted you, but what I was willing to assume from you. If I do not always forgive, I have neither truly loved you nor do I care for you from now on.
The meaning of penance
At the end of confession, we receive a penance. Does this mean that God is spiteful? What is the meaning of penance or satisfaction in forgiveness? Let us go back to an example: a child makes a mischief at school, breaking a glass door. The mother, in front of the principal, the first thing she would do would be to ask for forgiveness, even if she is not the guilty one; what happens is that she "is" in a certain way in the son and he in her. By feeling forgiven by the director, she understands that she has also forgiven the child. The same thing happens on the Cross with the Son: he personally asks for forgiveness, like the mother, because he has assumed all the sin of the world, and by God the Father offering his forgiveness, in Christ we have all been forgiven.
However, the debt for the damage is still outstanding. She assumes that she must pay and empties the billfold in the presence of her son who, moved and realizing the consequences of his action, decides to take out the few coins he has in his pocket. Should the mother accept them? Yes, for two main reasons: because if she did not do so, she would be belittling and disregarding the child's offer, and because it would be a lack of love. At the same time, by accepting, she makes him more aware of his own responsibility, and makes him more human. Those coins are penance. Analogously penance can be understood. After receiving forgiveness, what I can do for Jesus is penance. It is not the rancor of a God who passes the bill, but an act of delicate love on the part of God who values the gesture of love. In this way, God loves us by accepting our love, and he thanks us for it.
Faculty of Theology of Catalonia
