“They Know Not What They Do!”

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. Could you say that in prayer as Jesus did? These are among what we know as the seven last words (phrases, actually) of Jesus on the Cross, taken from Luke’s Gospel chapter 23, verse 34. They make a stirring statement about our Lord’s great desire to show mercy to those engaging in iniquitous behavior.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Could you say that in prayer about your enemies as Jesus did? Are there people at work or in your family perhaps who are a stumbling block to your sense of achieving any kind of peace or well being?

This phrase is in line with our Lord’s famous words in the Sermon on the Mount “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44). It seems like such a tall order, especially these days with so many people at each others’ throats over so many things big and small!

God, in respecting our free will to choose to love Him, allows evil, stemming from our disordered disposition from our fallen nature, to disrupt our lives so that in resisting evil we can grow stronger in humility and righteousness on our heavenward path. But tragically nowadays too many of us can’t even find that path to save our lives, or in this case, our souls!

Our Lord warned us, also in the Sermon on the Mount, to "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and easy is the way that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to [Eternal] life, and those who find it are few” (Matt 7:13-14).

Speaking of disordered decisions clouding our judgments, didn't Jesus himself tell His apostles in His Last Supper Discourse, that “indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God” (John 16:2)? And haven’t we seen this for centuries up until today when so many Christians are being martyred in places like Nigeria by militant Islamic groups like Boko Haram?

Going back to Biblical times, we see this tragic ignorance manifest perhaps strikingly in John’s Gospel. After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead in front of everyone, the high priest Caiaphas had this to say in stressing the supposed need for our Lord’s execution: "You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish" (John 11:49-50).

We read in the footnotes to the Navarre Bible that “Caiaphas agreed that, as Jesus was not (in their opinion) the Messiah, any popular insurrection now could only end in disaster; so it was better, he argued, to do away with him. He was unconscious of the deeper meaning of his words, namely that Jesus must die for the salvation of man.”

Now, of course we read in Matthew’s Gospel (27:18) that Pilate knew that it was out of envy that Jesus was being delivered up to him to be put to death so whatever righteous motives Caiaphas and his colleagues might have had about Jesus being put to death were certainly mixed in with some form of loathing for Him.

Indeed one can say of the Pharisees, the chief priests, and the elders among the Sanhedrin that their hearts were too hardened against Jesus to take His rebukes about their self-serving hypocrisy to heart.

Their blood lust to get rid of this troublemaker was such that as Christ would mournfully say looking at Jerusalem before His Passion, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken” (Luke 13:34).

Jesus could see, as only God could, that far from keeping the Romans from destroying “their holy place and their nation” (John 11:48), His death would only pave the way for the Jews’ futile rebellion against Rome which led to the destruction of both the their temple and Jerusalem itself in 70 AD! The Ignatius Study Bible points out that “In the end, it was not the acceptance of Jesus that threatened the city but the rejection of him that made its demise inevitable”.

The authors of the notes from this great resource concerning Jesus’ plea for forgiveness from the Cross also point out that “Jesus shows mercy to his executioners (1 Pet 2:23), realizing they are sinning in ignorance (Acts 3:17; 1 Cor 2:8)”.

Along this line note that after our Lord’s Ascension to Heaven and Pentecost, both Sts. Peter and Paul made reference to Christ’s persecutors not really knowing what they were doing. This wouldn’t excuse their heinous culpability in Christ’s crucifixion but that, as mentioned earlier, His Passion was a key component in God’s plan for our salvation in bringing out the ultimate good (our reconciliation with God after Christ’s sacrifice for us) from the ultimate evil (His Passion itself)!

St. Peter, in a speech to the people in Solomon’s Portico in the Jerusalem Temple noted: "And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled (Acts 3:17)” .

We read as well in St. Paul’s First letter to the Corinthians, chapter 2 verse 8 that “None of the rulers of this age [that is The Jewish and Roman authorities who collaborated to execute Jesus] understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” This is not to excuse Pharisaical arrogance as only stemming from ignorance however. Their pride blinded them to see Jesus not as the long awaited Messiah but rather as a blasphemous upstart. Fallen humanity’s general lack of knowledge of just how horrible sin is in God’s eyes is compounded by the fact that so many people these days believe that truth is subjective, that truth is whatever they say or think it is with little or no thought of our Lord at all!

Indeed, how many people over the millennia have done hideous things, such as sacrificing children to various Satanic Molochs, Baals, other such pagan idols, thinking that somehow they were appeasing their gods for some advantage such as a better harvest, or even worse, for just their own power and prestige?

Perhaps these people need prayers the most considering the danger in which they’ve put their souls at risk of falling into Hell, like snowflakes in a winter storm, as some saints have described such a scene. But ultimately, we’d pray for such nefarious bad actors so that on some level they may come to true repentance and be more like Dismas, the good thief whom Jesus rewarded with paradise from his genuine contrition while on the cross next to our Lord; rather than his fellow thief Gesmas on the other side of Jesus who just cursed Him, probably ensuring his own damnation.

Exorcists have noted an uptick in demonic activity in the past few years as both Christian clergy and laity alike have become more lukewarm about their faith in many parts of Europe, Canada, and even here in the US. Satan has slithered his way into many hearts who don’t realize he is real and that he’s after as many souls to drag down to Hell as he can. Whether they are Paupers or princes, residents of Rodeo Drive or Skid Row, it doesn’t matter to him and his multitudinous demonic minions. Satan is an equal opportunity destroyer!

While forgiveness can help bind up our emotional wounds, with Christ’s help, being unforgiving only rubs salt in them! All these personal wounds we suffer and give each other can take quite a toll on us! It is all too easy to let grudges, resentments as well as hatred keep us from forgiving those who have hurt us, as Jesus said in the sermon on the mount, “from the heart”.

Strive not to harden whatever broken heart you might have from hurts physical and emotional, large and small. Try not to turn away from God because of them especially these days, lest you wind up turning to self destructive behavior such as abusing drugs or alcohol as a dubious analgesic for your pain.

Along that line, remember if God is using evil to bring out a greater good, as mentioned earlier, we must all strive mighty to be part of that greater good instead of that force for evil. That means staying very close to Christ in prayer and the sacraments and striving constantly to live in loving obedience to the Triune Majesty of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

More importantly, we must pray that on some level, all sinners, both hardened and otherwise can have the contrition to ask for forgiveness (as Jesus did on the cross), so they don’t either deny their need for it or otherwise despair of God's mercy and grace and, figuratively speaking, throw a rope around their necks and look for a tree, as Judas did, most likely sealing his own damnation.

You can either eliminate your wounds with forgiveness or rub salt in them by picking at their scabs and nursing grudges so that they never really heal! Keep in mind the words we say at Mass to our Heavenly Father “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” that this may help Him to “deliver us from evil”!