The challenge of Christian “Forgiveness”: How a father forgave the man who had brutally murdered his son, just by saying these words: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
The Building Blocks of Forgiveness
Photo: Thrive Global
… compelling stories about forgiveness
21 Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
Matthew: Chapter 18
The compelling book “Dead Man Walking” by Sister Helen Prejean demonstrated so vividly the difficulty of doing what Jesus says we must do. As the passage above in Matthew demonstrates, forgiveness is an essential part of being a follower of God.
Yet, it is one of the most challenging tasks for any of us.
This story from “Dead Man Walking” illustrates that forgiveness can occur, but how important prayer is in that process,
Perhaps the most poignant moment in the book Dead Man Walking -- a moment not shown in the film -- is Lloyd LeBlanc's recollection of the day he identified the murdered body of his son. The author, Sr. Helen Prejean, recounts:
[When] he arrived with the sheriff's deputies there in the cane field to identify his son, he knelt by his boy - "laying down there with his two little eyes sticking out like bullets" - and prayed the Our Father. And when he came to the words: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," he had not halted or equivocated, and he said, "Whoever did this, I forgive them" …
While his initial response to the brutal murder of his son, and the rape and murder of his son's girlfriend, was forgiveness, he faced an ongoing struggle to live that forgiveness. He rose to speak at the murderer's clemency hearing to urge that a death sentence be carried out. But shortly thereafter he went to confession. Though he tried to avoid doing so, he attended the execution.
There his son's killer, Patrick Sonnier, apologized to him and asked for his forgiveness. LeBlanc nodded in assent. Years after the execution, LeBlanc is providing financial support to Sr. Prejean's ministry to death row prisoners, whom he calls 'God's children.' He attends Eucharistic adoration weekly, and he is praying for the Sonnier family. He comforted Patrick Sonnier's mother on her death bed.
Maureen Kramlich, “We forgive those who trespass against
us,” U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, n.d.
If Lloyd LeBlanc can forgive such an egregious act that robbed him of his precious child, why do we have such trouble doing so?
Questioning God’s beneficence
I have written many times on my blog about the impact that reading a book about forgiving God had a tremendous impact on me. It was written by a rabbi by the name of Harold Kushner, who lost his son to a dreadful disease when he was a teenager.
I wrote this about how I questioned how God could be good yet allow so many horrible things to happen to people,
I had wrestled with the topic of God’s beneficence throughout my life. Why did people die at such a young age? Why were some children born with debilitating diseases? Why do people die in automobile accidents and other such things? Why are children born into families with parents who ignore them? Why do hurricanes destroy lives and property?
It did not seem fair — until I read “When bad things happen to good people” by a parent known as Harold Kushner. He was a rabbi who struggled to understand why God punished him — a man who had spent much of his adult life helping lead people to God — by giving his son such a devastating disease such of progeria.
Hugh Brady Conrad, “In the 1980s, Rabbi Harold Kushner explained to me — albeit in another context — why dreadful events like pandemics do not occur because of God’s will”:
In essence, Rabbi Kushner writes about the process of understanding that God created nature and allowed it to take its course. However, he also said that he had to, in essence, forgive God in his heart, though he did not say it that way. That is my interpretation.
We should not question God, but we constantly do. God understands because that is how he created us, with the capacity to sin.
But, God also asks a great deal of us, and Jesus’ words about forgiveness are one of those. Some other illustrations from Sister Prejean’s book illustrate the challenge of forgiveness.
Forgiving after 9/11 or the Oklahoma City bombing
Sister Jean Prejean, CSJ, was not a person who asked to minister to those on death row, most of whom are despicable people. She only did so because a despised murderer had asked her to do so. She believed that it was part of her mission to bring the man to a realization of what he had done -- and ask for forgiveness.
The story about a father who forgave the masterminds of the Oklahoma City bombing of the federal building there, resulting in hundreds of deaths, is compelling because of the example of forgiveness,
Julie Welch, a recent Marquette University graduate gifted in foreign languages served as a translator for the Social Security Administration at the Alfred E. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. On April 19, 1995 she attended morning Mass before heading for work. At 9:02 AM, she greeted her first clients. Then a bomb reduced the building to rubble. She, along with 167 others, was killed that day.
After Julie's death, her father Bud Welch, turned to drinking and smoking to ease the pain of her loss. Every day, Mr. Welch paced the chain-linked fence that ran along the perimeter of the bombing site.
Mr. Welch had always opposed the death penalty but he noted acquaintances would say, "if it ever happens to you, you will change your mind." When it happened to him, he did change his mind. He recalls, "the first month or so after the bombing, after Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh were arrested and charged, I didn't even want trials for either of them, I wanted them fried."
And then one morning he was standing under an elm tree at the site of the destruction, watching mourners walk along the fence. His head was hurting from drinking the night before, but he began probing his mind with three questions: "Do you need trials to begin now? Do you need convictions? Do you need executions?"
Reflecting on this last question, he remembered a conversation he had with Julie during a road-trip home from Marquette. A news report on the radio announced that the state of Texas had carried out an execution the previous night. Julie had turned to her father and said, "Dad, that makes me sick what they are doing down in Texas. All they are doing is teaching hate to their children, and it has no social redeeming value."
Recalling this statement, Mr. Welch was immediately struck, realizing that it would be wrong to execute Nichols and McVeigh. He said, "the day that we might kill either one of them would be a day of vengeance and rage, and vengeance and rage is exactly why Julie and 167 others are dead." In his mind, then, the question was answered. No, he did not want executions.
Shortly thereafter Mr. Welch stopped drinking. He became an eloquent spokesman against the death penalty. Through his speaking engagements, he derives great comfort in sharing stories about Julie's life, her compassion, her contributions.
One speaking engagement brought him to Buffalo, New York, near the area where Timothy McVeigh grew up and where his father and sister still lived. Mr. Welch recalled one evening, watching the news, and a reporter attempted to interview Mr. McVeigh. Mr. McVeigh avoided the reporter's questions and only once looked at the camera. Mr. Welch saw an undeniable grief in Mr. McVeigh's eyes. He recognized that grief because he was living it. At that moment Mr. Welch knew he wanted to meet Mr. McVeigh.
The meeting between Mr. Welch and Mr. McVeigh was awkward. But they found common ground as Catholics of Irish descent. The two talked in the McVeigh kitchen. Jennifer McVeigh, Timothy McVeigh's sister, joined them. Mr. Welch caught himself glancing very self-consciously, above the table at an 8"x10" high school photo of Timothy McVeigh. Finally, he said, "God, what a good-looking kid." A tear rolled down Mr. McVeigh's face.
At the end of the meeting, Mr. Welch offered his hand to Mr. McVeigh and to Jennifer. Jennifer hugged him and began sobbing. Mr. Welch looked at her and said, "Honey, look, the three of us are in this for the rest of our lives. We can make the most of it if we choose. I don't want your brother to die and I will do everything I can to prevent it."
Maureen Kramlich, “We forgive those who trespass against us,” USCCB.com
Jesus asks us to turn the other cheek
Another of the stories in Matthew talks about forgiveness in another context, one that is even more challenging to us. This is difficult to understand, and some Christian ministers and priest say that it does not literally mean what it says: Except that it is very clear,
Jesus said to his disciples:
"You have heard that it was said,
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil.
When someone strikes you on your right cheek,
turn the other one to him as well.
Matthew 5:38
First, this does not mean that we have to be submissive or passive and not stand up for ourselves. However, what he is saying is that we should not seek revenge or do harm to others for what they have done to us.
This does not mean that when we are harmed emotionally or physically, that we should not stand up for ourselves and defend ourselves.
Should those victims of child or adult sexual abuse stand up for themselves? Obviously, yes.
However, what Jesus is saying is that we have to forgive those who do so. That is the “other” cheek.
Gut-wrenching story of a suicide
I met a young man many years ago who was abused by a priest as a young boy. He suffered through the ordeal of trying to cope with that constant abuse. It led to alcohol and drug addiction, and I met him when he was trying to overcome that dependence.
That trauma never subsided for him even after he became a counselor to those who were abused. In his 40s, he took his own life.
I feel for his parents, who are wonderful people. How hard it is to forgive the priest who engaged in that abusive conduct. \
I have thought of that with the terrible story of Jerry Sandusky, the Penn State football coach who abused dozens of young boys and was convicted of 45 counts for doing so.
How difficult is it for their families and for the abused himself to forgive?
Larry Senko
I have written previously about Larry Senko whom I recruited to play college football back in the 1980s. Larry became a tremendous success in the business world because of his tenacious work ethic and tremendous personality.
Then on Sept. 11, 2001, he was on the 102nd story of the World Trade Center and was killed by Osama bin Laden’s compatriots.
I wrote this about Larry in an earlier piece and have often wondered how hard it was for his parents to forgive bin Laden and al Queda,
I remember this particular recruiting talk very well. On a winter morning in early 1985, I met with Larry Senko and his parents, Ed and Margaret, at St. Francis College in Loretto, Pa. Larry had been a very good lineman for Mon Valley Catholic High School, and he was visiting St. Francis to see if he would like to attend the school and play football for the Red Flash.
We talked about many things, including the best-known athlete from his hometown, Stan Musial, the great Cardinal baseball player who also grew up in Donora, Pa.
What impressed me was the closeness of the parents and their son, and how they had great dreams for their son’s success. Larry had been very clear about what he wanted to major in at St. Francis: “Business Administration.” And his parents whispered to me a little later when Larry went on a frigid tour of campus, “Larry has big dreams … and he is a hard worker. And he just loves football.”
Hugh Brady Conrad, “Remembering Larry Senko, St. Francis football player whom I recruited in 1985 and who was living the American Dream until terrorists ended it in 2001 — and thinking of Tyler and Debbi,”
In that piece, I also noted a piece that his wife, who was Jewish, wrote about Larry on his memorial,
On September 11, 2001, Larry left for work in the usual fashion. Rising at 5:30 a.m. and sharing kisses with his family before he left. Larry spoke with his wife after the tragedy began. In Larry fashion, he was calm and expressed his love. Although he promised to make it home, fate had other plans. Another hero was needed and taken before his time.
Debbi Senko-Goldman, Living Memorial Voices of September 11
How difficult it must have been for Ed and Margaret Senko and for Debbi to look at this photo:
Larry, Tyler, and Debbi in happy times
Family photo
Yet Jesus asks us to forgive. It is the most challenging part of our Christianity, and all of us must do so. The words of "The Lord's Prayer" are also clear,
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
To receive God's forgiveness, we must first forgive.
Conclusion
That is how challenging this entire situation is.
Jesus asks us to forgive, to turn the other cheek, and it is the essence of being a Christian. Yet, while we are supposed to honor God, that is not the end of our Christian duties.
We must follow the words of Jesus in the New Testament no matter how difficult they are to accept.
Forgiveness is one of them. We must forgive others, and ourselves.
The stories by Sister Prejean shows how challenging that can be.
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