Forgiveness

Dear Friend,

If I’m honest with myself, I must admit that no spiritual practice is harder for me than forgiving myself. My attachment to perfectionism and unrealistic expectations is so strong! It might sound bizarre, but their relentless grip on my thoughts and feelings has gotten comfortable. Then, in the cascade of their negative effects on my life – isolation, procrastination, and fear – my life can become, as my friends in 12-step recovery would say, unmanageable. Forgiveness is a key I can easily misplace and yet the door it opens is one of the most important in my life: the door to a joy-filled personal freedom of spirit. 

In a famous story from the treasure trove of early Franciscan sources, Saint Francis imagines himself arriving very late at night at a friary, in the freezing cold, and knocking on the door only to have the friar/brother who answers the door basically slam it in his face after chastising him (Francis) for showing up so late and bothering the brothers. He – Francis – then muses that if he were able to remain serene in such a situation, he would be perfectly joyful, presumably in the knowledge that he had been granted the ultimate in spiritual growth.

In his presentation last Sunday, Father Garrett Galvin reminded us that Franciscan spirituality is not abstract. Rather, it is embedded with how we live day to day with God, ourselves and others, including especially those hard realities of anger, frustration, and resentment (including physical abuse), which our readings this weekend present to us. As Father Ronald Rolheiser observes, in the end our spiritual vocabulary boils down to one word: forgiveness – the need "to forgive ourselves for our shortcomings, to forgive others who’ve hurt us, and forgive God for those times when life seems unfair."

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm