Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” - Luke 6:27
“I hold on, and often by the skin of my teeth, to believe that God is in charge of this world, in spite of all appearances to the contrary.” - Archbishop Desmond Tutu
How is it possible to love our enemies? Pray for those who mistreat us? Forgive? Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa wrestled with these questions, as have Christians throughout time. And Tutu, like millions over two millennia, had every reason to wonder about how much God is in charge (given his experience with apartheid). Tutu wrote that the only way that he has been able to forgive was by his firm belief that ultimately God has the last word and it will be a word of justice. God, who is justice, will make things right.
In his memoir, No Future Without Forgiveness, the Archbishop wrote about forgiveness. As he put it so eloquently: “Forgiving and being reconciled to our enemies or loved ones are not about pretending that things are other than they are. This is not about turning a blind eye to the wrong. Reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the hurt, the truth. It could even make things worse. It is a risky undertaking but the end is worthwhile because only an honest confrontation with reality can bring healing. Superficial reconciliation can bring only a superficial healing.”
Perhaps Tutu’s best advice is that forgiveness is not forgetting, it is actually remembering and still not giving in to revenge. This is not taking matters into our own hands but placing them in God’s hands. When we believe this, we can then love our enemies. We can turn the other cheek. We can pray for those who have abused us. We can do all of this because we know that God is in charge, in spite of appearances to the contrary. This can be a simple but life changing belief.
Making things right is what God does, sometimes in this world but definitely in the next. Our healing will not be completed in this life, but in the one to come.
—Timothy J. Cronin