LET IT GO
Do you remember ‘Napalm Girl’ - the most iconic image from the 1972 Vietnam war? The one that shows her running naked down a road, crying and severely burned? Kim Phuc’s life after that horrendous event was filled with intense pain and a deep hatred for the people who’d dropped the bomb that led to her ruin.
Many years later, she was baptised and as a Christian, began a long and challenging journey of learning to forgive. Then in 1996, she was invited to speak at a Veterans Day ceremony in Washington, D.C. She didn’t know it but sitting in the audience was John Plummer, a U.S. veteran who’d helped coordinate the airstrike on her village. John had spent the years since then tormented by PTSD and a sense of guilt that had never left him.
After her speech and the reverent applause, Kim was led up the weeping John. In front of the crowd, she did the unimaginable: she hugged him and said, ‘I forgive you.’
And that started them both down a road that would eventually lead them to the real peace that came with letting go of the trauma of their past.
Resentment and anger, says Ecclesiasticus in this week’s first reading, these are foul things. So true. Foul, not just because they’re dark things in themselves, but because they foul up our peace, our spirit, our outlook on life. They foul up our vision and mess with the way we interact with others and the way we make decisions.
Observing the line outside the confessional at our parish every weekend, it’s heartening to think we persevere in searching for Kim and John’s true peace by admitting our culpability in causing harm or our rage against being the one harmed. Even with absolution, though, sometimes it’s hard to fully release the debt owed us.
Fine for Disney to make that song stick in our heads. Not so easy to let go.
In today’s Gospel, Peter’s wants to know what the limit is in letting go the harm done to us. Jesus does not give him one. Instead, our Lord tells him to throw the calculator away, because the limit doesn’t exist.
We understand the story of the forgiven debt and why we should follow the example of our God, who Himself forgives us over and over. And we have to try to live up to that example because, as St Paul says in the second reading, the life and death of each of us has its influence on others.
If that’s the case, withholding forgiveness, in small or big things, can seem a bit selfish. We might not see how it could impact the next step the one indebted to us takes. We might think things like:
• ‘They hurt me so they must apologise first.’
• ‘They’re not actually sorry they hurt me.’
• ‘If I forgive them, they’re going to hurt me again.’
• ‘If I forgive easily, they’ll take it as weakness or that I’m the one guilty.’
• ‘I’ll forgive them when it stops hurting.’
• ‘I’ll teach them a lesson first, then I’ll forgive.’
Turn away and slam the door
I don't care what they're going to say
Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered me anyway
Human thoughts.
The problem is, Jesus didn’t tell Peter that forgiveness comes with conditions. In fact, He said forgive your brother from your heart. Because that’s how our Father forgives us.
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around.
We can’t always switch off anger and hurt and just say I forgive you. The spiritual fight is real, and it’s hard. But we want to focus on a few truths:
1) Forgiveness isn’t approval. It’s freedom.
We might resist forgiveness for all the reasons listed above. But forgiveness is saying:
• I release myself from the poison of injury done to me
• I trust my Father to take appropriate action in His own time and in His wisdom
2) Forgiveness isn’t putting ourselves back in harm’s way. It’s NOT tolerating abuse.
Just because we make the decision to let go of the harm someone’s done to us, it definitely doesn’t mean we give them permission to continue the hurt or the abuse. We’re freeing ourselves from the situation it’s created.
3) Forgiveness is looking at the Cross and putting Jesus before the hurt.
We’re doing this because of Him. When it’s hard to let go, we remember that Jesus forgave while on the Cross. He didn’t stipulate any conditions for those who harmed Him. He still does that today. We can’t be His if we don’t even want to try to love like Him.
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I'm never going back, the past is in the past
It took decades for Kim Phuc to reach the state of forgiving willingly and fully. Some hurts will be like that, because the damage caused is immense. We might not even not reach that state in this lifetime. But we have to try, again and again, more than seventy-seven times. Jesus sees our heart and our effort, and His Spirit in us helps us fight the desire to retaliate.
This week, consider the small or big instances in which you’re been insulted, angered, annoyed, seriously hurt, maybe even ruined, by someone you’re not sure you can forgive. Look at the Cross. Ask Him for help. Listen to His Spirit telling you how to take one step towards letting it go. The rest might take time, but don’t stop trying.
Let it go, let it go
And I'll rise like the break of dawn
With the Father’s help, when we can arrive at the state where the past is truly in the past and we’re no longer slaves to its impact, we’ll stand in a new dawn where our wounds are still present but they don’t hurt any more.
May the Lord’s compassion, love, and mercy lead you gently today on the road towards letting go of all that’s hurting you.
God bless.
Article by Joyce Norma, HFC Blog Contributor