How can one pray for the enemy if forgiveness is not a human virtue?

There are wrongs, injustices, and violence that cause so much suffering and disrupt lives and create so much anger and frustration that forgiveness is impossible. You only have to read the daily news to realize this. I know about some of them personally; I will not mention them because they are open wounds. We can well understand Peter’s amazement and bewilderment at Jesus’ answer to the question of how many times one must forgive, “seventy times seven,” that is, always (Mt 18:21-22). And yet we all know, and I think everyone knows, situations in which forgiveness has purified and freed the heart of the wronged party from all those negative feelings that poison and crush life much more than the evil received, and we all know situations in which the lack of forgiveness has intoxicated life. But forgiveness is not a human quality. It is God’s ability; it is a divine way of living and relating.

But if it is so important, so liberating, so vital to our lives to be able to forgive, how is it possible to forgive when this is divine? In my personal experience, as well as that of a spiritual director, and in my mission of service in so many situations marked by pain and violence, I have understood that it is not possible to forgive magically at the moment when one suffers the wrong received, but it is the fruit of a long journey, which begins long before (or has yet to begin), and which has these characteristics: first of all, prompt forgiveness is possible when it is the product of a sense of love, gratuitousness and forgiveness within which one has built and lives one’s life, a form of life in which the person has already included the possibility of error, of failure, of evil done and suffered, and above all of a love that flows out of the ego, which has become fruitful and life-giving. One who has trained himself throughout his life to embody this meaning within this sphere of life. Something that one has chosen beforehand! It is this aspect of having chosen these values and this sphere of meaning for one’s life that is fundamental and that leads one to prompt forgiveness. Among the many possible examples, living in Palermo, I cite Fr. Pino Puglisi, who, at the moment of his assassination, turned a smile and a peaceful look towards his killers. A smile and a peaceful look of someone who had long been aware of his possible end and who, following the example of Jesus, had already chosen to stay and to forgive.

In addition to this attitude, which is cultivated over time, it is essential to have a healthy, regular, mature spiritual life, characterized by meditation on God’s Word, conscious living of the sacraments, and a request for grace, that is, asking God for His ability to forgive. Through the gift of Jesus’ life, He has made this characteristic of God manifest to us, and by drawing on His experience, we can also live it. Personally, in a situation where years ago I was suffering and angry because of an injustice I had suffered, I experienced an inner liberation through grace by contemplating, over a long period of silence, the passion of Jesus and his words on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). A Jesus torn in body and spirit by the violence and abandonment he suffered, who begs forgiveness for those who kill him! Divine…and human because of Him. And thanks to Him, by drawing on His life, I have been liberated and capable of forgiveness. And two more attitudes which one can cultivate are: thinking about human misery, frailty, inner deception, lack of freedom, the environment of the wrongdoer. In this sense, an example for me is the testimony of Fiammetta Borsellino and how she bears no grudge against those who killed her father and is a positive, purposeful, dynamic and life-giving woman. Or the example I receive every time I serve in the occupied West Bank of so many Palestinians crushed by the violence of the Israeli occupation army and fundamentalist settlers.

Finally, as the parable that follows Jesus’ response to Peter (Mt 18:23-35) invites us to ask for, and as we are invited to ask for in the Lord’s Prayer, in addition to asking for this ability as a grace, as a gift from God, it is important to be aware that each of us needs forgiveness and mercy to live this life to the fullest. Each of us needs to feel this power of love for ourselves, to experience that our mistakes, the evil we have done, do not condemn us and are not the last word for our life, by first experiencing the forgiveness of God and our brothers and sisters. We cannot live to the best of our ability if we do not feel forgiven, if we do not experience a love greater than ourselves, a love that is free, and thus we are able to “forgive our debtors”. And so forgiveness is a gift that we can receive from Him in order to be able to live it. But again, it is not magical. It is a journey, a formation, a choice, a horizon, a nourishment of the word, a prayer, a living and life-giving relationship with the God of true life. Pope Francis, an expert in humanity and spiritual life, has called for the Jubilee so that entering through the Holy Door is an opportunity to experience liberating grace, both for the wronged and for the wrong doers. This can only happen with a good preparation, at the right time, through meditations, appropriate reflections and, above all, with the right attitude and desire.

This reflection by Francesco Cavallini SJ was first published in Italian on Avvenire.