By: Rosario Alfaro Martínez

Have you ever felt hurt or offended or have you ever been made feel bad? Maybe, sometime, you have been hurt to the point that somebody changes your life, because you did not expect him / her to mock you, because you really trusted him/ her and you have been disappointed, because he/ she did something that you will not be able to forget as long as you live. And maybe, even if you know that you must forgive this person because it is your duty as a catholic person, you can’t. Let us think of the worst thing a person can do to another, the worst: defame, betray, insult, bit, rape or kill him/her. Well, Jesus was exactly in that situation, He was nailed to the Cross, he had been slandered, insulted, bitten, his rights as a person, as a Jew and as a citizen had been violated, he was being killed; Jesus had all the reasons to feel anger and hate. But he didn’t, when He was nailed to the Cross the first thing he said in his agony is: “Father, forgive them, for they not know what they do”

And Jesus was right when He pronounced those words, first He addressed to His Father, an extremely merciful God, and He addressed to Him mercifully and compassionately with one of the prayers He likes so much. And He asks for forgiveness, excusing His aggressors, telling God that they do not know what they do. And we truly can say that they do not know what they do, because a crowd is an amorphous and shapeless mass that is not responsible for itself and we can confirm it today. Many people do a lot of things when they are part of a demonstration or any other group that they would not dare to do individually. The same thing happened to that crowd; they did not know what they were doing, they let others decide for them, others felt they were saviors and leaders of the people, without knowing they were crucifying the leader they had waited for, for so long. We can say that they did not know what they were doing, though it might be possible that some of them did know they were doing wrong. Maybe they did not know Jesus was the son of God, but they knew at least that they were judging an innocent person. But Jesus decided to speak in general and excuse everyone, saying, in general, that they did not know what they were doing. The crowd apologizes anonymously, and in the same way Jesus excuses them as a group, for Him, they did not know what they were doing, although He knew well all of them, individually and he forgave them individually.

It was good that Jesus forgave those who did not know what they were doing, because the same thing happens to us today, we really do not know what we do when we offend Him, when we do things against His will. I think we do not know because if we realized the spiritual consequences of the bad things we do, we would not do them. Our conscience would let us know that we are offending and harming the relation that we should care about the most, because it is the relationship with the Person that loves us the most: God. So let us feel that the forgiveness God offered when He was on the Cross is also for us, who do not know what we do.

Since we are meditating right now, let us think about the things Jesus invites us to do with His example. He is inviting us to forgive, to truly forgive, to forgive those who have offended us, hurt us and have changed our lives. Those are the ones that Jesus wants us to forgive. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we say: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” This prayer is of great significance; let us pay attention to what we are saying to God. We ask Him to forgive us in the same way we forgive others. In other words we are asking him to do the same thing we do with others, judge us with the same law we judge others, and if we do not truly forgive, when we pray the Lord’s prayer, what we are really saying to God is: Do not forgive us, as we do not forgive others.

If we do not forgive, I think we cannot call ourselves Christians, because a Christian person is that who follows Jesus’ example in every aspect, He said that a Christian person was that who carried his Cross and followed Him. If we are not able to forgive to the point of death, and not any death but a death on the cross, we are not following Jesus’ example, we can not call ourselves Christians.

Well, now let us try to understand what Christian forgiveness means. Forgiveness does not mean oblivion, because remembering is a human ability and we cannot eradicate it from our humanity. Christian forgiveness is not forgetting, it means that when we remember again, the situation does not provoke the same anger or hatred feeling in us that it provokes now, for that, it is necessary that we pray for the person who has hurt us or offended us; but that we pray for that person with love. Jesus also gave us a command on this matter, He said: “But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5, 44). And He adds something else: “that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5,45). That means, if we really want to be children of God, we have to love our enemies.

This seems to be impossible, that is why Jesus has given us testimony that it is not impossible, yes, it is very difficult, but it is not something that goes beyond our human capacity, Jesus did it on the Cross, we can also do it.

Let’s think about it now, imagine Jesus on the Cross, in His agony, with a compassionate heart, being able to forgive every men, forgiving us, you and me today, let’s try to follow His example forgiving those who have offended us, we are not on a Cross, we are not dying, what keeps you from following Jesus’ example?

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