Forgiveness and Freedom

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” – Lewis Smedes

The concept of forgiveness has always been something easier for me to grasp and aspire towards than the act of forgiveness itself. The readings today highlighted that tension for me. The first reading and responsorial psalm highlight the ideal: be more like God, “who does not persist in anger forever, but delights rather in clemency.” This makes perfect sense to me as something to aspire towards. We should forgive others and realize the imperfection inherent to all human beings.

The Gospel then details this tension through the range of responses to being wronged by another through a parable Jesus shares. In the parable, the youngest of two sons returns home after squandering his inheritance. The father exhibits the ideal in forgiveness as he thought his son had died and now he has returned. The forgiveness is immediate as he looks forward to the future with his newly reunited son and not how he was wronged by his son. Now, the oldest son exhibits what I find to be the more natural response in this context, which is anger, jealousy, and contempt. He cannot seemingly fathom why his father and the others are celebrating his younger brother who did everything wrong with his inheritance while he had remained at home and stayed loyal and true to his father. The parable ends with the father explaining the flaw in his oldest son’s logic. The father is celebrating because he thought his youngest son was lost. The act of forgiveness is not a comparison between his sons, but rather a response to the facts that his son is alive and exhibiting contrition for his actions.

The Gospel reminded me of the self-centeredness that lies at the core of my thoughts when I don’t choose forgiveness. There is only one person who controls whether I forgive or not and that person is me. It’s a fallacy to think that forgiveness is not needed, or earned, until someone meets a minimum threshold of acceptable behavior or contrition, such as with the oldest son. The act of forgiveness is entirely controlled by those who forgive, not by those who receive it. It’s with this thought that the Lewis Smedes quote comes to mind. We hold ourselves back and confine ourselves to lesser versions of our self or a less rewarding life when it could be spent in community and harmony with others.

While in many ways having ownership over the process is freeing, for me, it is not easily realized in my thoughts and actions, which is why my reflection gravitated more towards the Gospel than the other reading. In the moment, often times, I catch myself thinking that I am not holding myself back. Like the oldest son, I focus on how I was wronged or comparing different actions rather than viewing them in isolation such as the father did. It’s in this admission that I can see the path forward. I may still initially act like the oldest son in the parable; however, it is in those next moments that we get the opportunity to choose how to behave and react in a way moving towards forgiveness and God. We are all a work in progress but understanding the ownership we have in our actions, like choosing to forgive, is truly freeing and moves us on the path towards omnipotent ideals such as universal harmony and acceptance.

Author: Alex Soich, CFO