by Fr. Martin Mary Fonte, FI

Once I was giving a lenten retreat on a group of teachers of a Catholic school, who chose a theme of forgiveness for their annual spiritual exercise. It only dawned on me on the course of interval spiritual workshop that many of them are struggling with the whole theory and practice of forgiveness. And I spill out to them the most important principle to understand the apparently intricate reality of forgiveness: it takes to be good, to forgive.

David after he sinned against God by taking the wife of Uriah and letting the latter die in the frontline of battle, only beg forgiveness because he was confronted by the prophet Nathan who pointed out to him the evil he had done. Sin has a nature of blinding man from his true state of affair because the act of sinning causes one to be wrapped up in the cocoon of one’s own selfishness. The sinner’s objectivity is destroyed and the tyranny of subjectivity reigns. This is even dangerous when one has the authority to rule like David; for prudence is destroyed by being swallowed up by inordinate love.

Hence, forgiveness, always demand a prior acknowledgment of one’s guilt. When sin is denied, the possibility of forgiveness is alienated.

Bringing in a more theological plane the causality of forgiveness and justification, St. Paul in his address to the Galatians emphasized that forgiveness is primarily the work of God rather than purely man’s works. By way of backdrop, he was correcting the tendency of the Judaizers (Jewish converts to Christianity) to reduce the aspect of justification and forgiveness to mere works of the Law, that is, the legal and ritualistic laws. Here is one of the points that sheds light to the flaw of the whole principle of “sola fide” of the Reformation: faith alone and not good works justify. Such selective “biblical pruning” seem to justify the reformer’s claim. But reading the Scripture in its entirety, there are many references to the need, though subordinate, of that voluntary cooperation on the part of man in order to be forgiven.

The application of this truth is found in the episode of the Gospel today. Simon the pharisee is the personification of a man who is assured that he is justified because he simply does good works. It never dawn on him, that to be forgiven is primarily a gift of God. This attitude leads him to condemn the adulterous woman who came at the feet of our Lord asking forgiveness. Simon’s attitude presupposes a covert misunderstanding of the reality of sin and the essential requirement to be forgiven. Sinning is not just merely a violation of any code of conduct. Sinning is an objective offense to the infinite goodness of God. Justice requires, that an infinite offense demands an infinite reparation. Offending an infinite God demands an infinite reparation for the forgiveness of sins. Since man and his merit are finite, it demands an infinite agent to repair his sin. Hence, that agent must be divine but at the same time human to represent the human offender. This is the whole logic of the Incarnation: Jesus as man, assumed the place of sinners; Jesus as God assumed the “reparator” to accomplish an adequate satisfaction for man’s sins.

From this, one can draw some immediate implications relevant to our time:

First, the question of forgiveness is answered mistakenly by two opposite syndromes: the Pelagian syndrome (from the heresy of Pelagianism) which admits that justification and forgiveness is attained through man’s effort alone. One’s quest for righteousness, like the pharisee Simeon, is purely an undertaking of man. God’s role is peripheral. The other, is fideistic syndrome. It lies more on action of grace to the negligence of man’s free cooperation. Man, because he is totally corrupted, is incapable of meriting. His forgiveness and attainment of holiness has absolutely nothing do with his good works.

Secondly, forgiveness entails an encounter of the human and the divine: the human furnishes the act of repentance, the divine provides the act of mercy. These twofold sets of actions are essential in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Man needs to confess his sins, to be contrite of them and be ready to do penance. God, on the other hand provides, through the priest’s absolution, the act of forgiveness. This is what Our Lord did to the sinful woman who came to him. She confessed, wept for her sins and repair them by an act of humiliation and self-offering. Jesus uttered the divine absolution: “Her sins are forgiven because she loved much.”

By way of conclusion, one recalls the quest of St. Thomas Aquinas on what attribute perfectly describes God’s omnipotence. He said, punishment of sins is done by God because it is proportionate to man’s sinful action. Forgiveness, however, reveals God’s omnipotence because it is proportionate to His nature. It takes goodness to forgive--the evil can not be so powerful and so great that it can obliterate the goodness of God. To forgive is of God, because His nature is simply Goodness. Our capacity, therefore, to forgive others who have hurt us and caused us pain, is proportionate to the degree of goodness we posses in our hearts. IT TAKES TO BE GOOD TO FORGIVE.

+ May the Lord give you his peace.

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