What happens when you cannot forgive someone, cannot let go?

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… one of the great challenges of life


People often undergo traumatic events in their lives, and when that ends, they are told to forgive the other person or persons. 


Often, they choose to hang onto their anger, and it destroys them more than the other person. 


So, how do we meet this challenge?


What happens when you can’t let go?


They do not deserve forgiveness


That is what a person confronted after listening to a clergyman tell her that he had to forgive another, 


I’ll tell you what bothers me. It’s when I go to Mass, minding my own business, and the priest says something like, “Is there anything or anyone you really need to forgive?”

 

Ah, yeah. There is something and definitely someone. And it is the same something and the same someone that I always think of when I hear a homily like this or when it comes up at a retreat or in spiritual direction or confession or whatever. It comes up often enough, alright? And I’m not going to spell it out here. God knows what I am talking about.

 

But I just cannot seem to let it go. And frankly, I don’t appreciate being reminded of it. I would much rather try to forget about it. 


Usually, I will say a little prayer I don’t really mean, like: “God, can you help me with this? Can you take this grudge away from me?” And then somewhere in my subconscious, I imagine, I say: “Oh, you can’t help me right now? O.K., no problem, God. I don’t really want to forgive this anyway. Because this person doesn’t deserve it.” 


J.D. Long-Garcia, “A reflection for Monday of the week seek 

of Lent,” America Media, March 14, 2022


Psychologists will tell people that if they continue to allow this anger and resentments to fester inside of you, that will destroy you, not the other person. 


That is true. 


What if the offense is terribly egregious?


However, the challenge is what do so when the offense is so horrible that you cannot let go of it. In short, it is “unforgivable.”


That’s how it goes. Every time. 


Do you have something like that? Do you have someone you just cannot seem to forgive? Someone who did something you consider unforgivable, either to you or to someone you love? 


Or worse, do you, like me, fool yourself into thinking you have actually forgiven that person or that thing that happened? Then, snap, the surge of anger. The pain of it, re-lived. You haven’t really forgiven it, and you certainly haven’t let it go.  

 

It’s the worst. I hate thinking about this. And Jesus is telling me, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”? 


Come on, Lord! If I may confess my great weakness here, I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive this person for this thing. I hope I can someday—for my own sake! 


J.D. Long-Garcia, America Media, March 14, 2022


They know not what they are doing


The religious reference here is when Jesus forgave those who took his life, forgave the state that executed him with capital punishment,


Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”


Luke 23:34


What happens, though, when they know very well what they are doing?


Here is the challenge


I do not think that I am hanging onto things at this stage of my life. Perhaps I am deluding myself, but I can think of nothing that is so terrible that I cannot forgive a person for it. 


However, what if I had been a victim of clerical sexual abuse like hundreds of thousands of people have been at the hands of Catholic priests and hierarchy?


What if someone close to me had been brutally raped or murdered, and justice was never carried out?


What if someone had destroyed my family?


What if someone had absconded with my money or destroyed my future in some way?


What if … 


Then what?


The words are simple for Jesus to say, but implementing them into your life is very challenging,


Be merciful, just as your father is merciful.


Luke: 6:36


Sometimes, experiences like these lead people away from God. 


Sometimes, permanently. 


If people cannot secure some degree of forgiveness, they may often decide that God is not good and that he is not merciful. 


It is a tremendous — and often heartbreaking — challenge.


J.D. Long-Garcia is a senior editor at America.


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