What To Do When It's Hard to Forgive

Among the many teachings that Our Lord imparted to His followers during the Sermon on the Mount, one of the most famous - and challenging - is the teaching about loving one’s enemies. The question of how to live out Our Lord’s challenge in our daily lives, and how to behave toward those who injure us, has reverberated throughout the centuries as a perennial question in the minds of Christians. In this post I’d like to examine the approaches taken by two theologians, one classical and one modern. Through examining St. Francis de Sales’ treatment of anger in his Introduction to the Devout Life and Dr. Anthony L. Lilles’ treatment of forgiveness in Fire From Above, we can see that the two approaches of using reason to temper excessive anger, and allowing one’s injury to become a pathway to sanctity, may be taken in tandem for a fuller understanding and application of Our Lord’s words.

While St. Francis de Sales’ spiritual classic Introduction to the Devout Life does not devote a specific meditation to Our Lord’s injunction to forgive enemies, Chapter VIII of Part Three does speak of how to deal with anger at perceived offenses, and so it is this chapter that will provide the basis for his treatment of Our Lord’s commandment. St. Francis takes what may be called an objective approach to perceived offenses. He is concerned primarily with the question of the most virtuous and objectively correct action to take when one is prone to anger or resentment at an offense. Saint Francis sees the passion of anger as harmful, and so, when we are angered by an injustice done against us, we must temper our reaction with reason. He advises his readers to keep their passions in check as much as possible:“I exhort you earnestly never to give way to anger,” and “It is safer, then to avoid all anger.” When one feels angry, he must summon up his reason to mitigate the negative effects of the unbridled passions, and if he must administer justice, to do it with reason instead of passion. This of course cannot be done by willpower alone, which is why we must call upon God to assist us in overcoming our natural tendency to obey the passions: “we must imitate the Apostles amidst the raging storm and tempest, and call upon God to help us…” Saint Francis’ approach is rooted in the individual’s obligation to behave in accordance with human nature, which demands that the passions be subjected to reason.

While Saint Francis de Sales roots the agent’s response in the external course of action most in accord with human nature, there is another way to address the question, and that is from considering the internal transformations that the offender and the offended party may go through in the process of overcoming wrongdoing. It is this approach that Dr. Anthony Lilles considers in his work Fire From Above. This may be called the personalistic approach, because the emphasis is on using an occasion of offense as an opportunity for greater spiritual growth for both persons involved. Dr. Lilles anchors his treatment of forgiving offenses in a consideration of why God allows people to sin against each other. Rooting his response in Our Lord’s words: “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,” Lilles states that God allows people to sin against each other for two reasons: He wants the victim to pray for the wrongdoer, and He wants both parties to be more perfectly conformed to the image of His crucified Son. When someone sins against us, we ought to ask ourselves what may be going on in his life or in his heart that moved him to hurt us. The attention is not on our own grievances, but on the hurt that may be going on in someone else’s life. This consideration should move us to pray for that person precisely because his offending us may have been a reaction to some area in his life in which he needs prayers. Furthermore, by responding not with a curse but with a blessing, we are becoming more like Christ, about Whom Isaiah said that He did not defend Himself when unjustly attacked. This conforming to Christ cannot come about without suffering.

As does Saint Francis de Sales, Dr. Lilles acknowledges that to respond to offense with forgiveness is not merely difficult, but impossible by human standards. This is why he emphasizes the need for the action of the Holy Spirit in our hearts: “Only the Lord’s mercy can dissolve our hardness of heart toward those who have harmed us.” When we ask the Holy Spirit to help us forgive, we are asking Him not only to come to us, but also to dwell in the heart of our offender, so that He may heal his wounds as well as ours. Dr. Lilles states: “...when someone wounds us, the wound can become a pathway into that person’s heart.” The wounds which the offender carries in his heart and the wounds which have been inflicted on us become channels through which the Holy Spirit can work in both parties. This cannot happen unless the offended party asks the Holy Spirit to help him forgive the offense. Without this act of forgiveness, both parties are closed off to the superabundant grace. With this single act, both offender and offended are conformed more perfectly to the image of Christ crucified, Who responded to His persecutors with blessing. In the end, it is God forgiving the offender through us, for left to our own devices, we are not capable of such Divine activity.

One noticeable benefit of Dr. Lilles’ method that it provides an explanation for why there is suffering in the world. While Saint Francis approaches the interior suffering that comes from offense as a pitfall that must be avoided manfully if we are to become holy, Dr. Lilles sees suffering and forgiveness precisely as an opportunity to grow in holiness. The words that came from Our Lord’s own lips, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and which often come from the hearts of the injured, receive their answer in the very cross from which Jesus uttered them. It is to make us more like Christ, and to unite us more perfectly to Him and to our fellow man, that God allows us to suffer offense at the hands of our neighbors. Without suffering and without forgiveness, we will never become like Christ.

Despite the obvious differences between the approaches of Saint Francis and Dr. Lilles, it is yet possible to harmonize the two to provide a fuller picture of the way in which Christians may respond to offense and love their enemies. Saint Francis is correct that man must never do what is unbecoming to his nature; he must never allow his passions to control his reason, for to do so is to act in a way unfitting for a rational creature. In that case, what are we to do, besides simply tempering our emotions with reason? What do we owe ourselves and the one who offends us? Dr. Lilles provides a great insight as to the way in which we are to “deal with” our wounds, so to speak. By asking the Holy Spirit to help us understand what our enemy may be enduring and experiencing that caused him to hurt us, and by inviting Him to heal both us and our offender, we are confronting fully the reality and legitimacy of our wounds. However, instead of dwelling on them in self-pity or resentment, we use the offense as an occasion to bind us even closer in love to our enemies, and to God. When we do this, we are responding in a way that is both objective and personalistic. We are acting in accordance with our human nature by responding with reason and emotional temperance, but we are also inviting the Holy Spirit to conform us and our enemy into the image of Christ. In this, the Holy Spirit elevates our mere human nature and endows it with supernatural grace to endure whatever sufferings we encounter in this life, as did Our Lord. Only through this pathway will we genuinely live out Our Lord’s injunction to love our enemies.

The answers to the question of enduring suffering supplied by Saint Francis de Sales and Dr. Anthony Lilles are more complementary than they first appear to be. While Saint Francis emphasizes what the Christian must not do in response to offense, Dr. Lilles provides an explanation of what we should do to live out Our Lord’s commandment to love our enemies. The Holy Spirit helps us to rise above our mere human instinct for revenge, and bring both ourselves and our enemies closer to Him. In this we are fulfilling the law of love, which is to desire the good of the other, for his own sake. In this we are loving our enemies.