When you forgive, you love.
And when you love,
God’s light shines upon you.
–Ronald Franz,
qtd. in Into the Wild
Forgiveness is fundamentally an individual act, but with social implications. Every harm has repercussions, rippling impacts through time and community. Really living into the fullness of forgiveness means moving toward as full a reclamation of human dignity and communion as possible.
When this becomes the way in which we move and live and have our being, suddenly seven times seventy becomes far more attainable — not a heroic act for the few. But we cannot do it alone. We need to encourage one another daily. And build up systems (legal and otherwise) that create vessels for mercy and grace to shape the labor of justice itself.
Because of Christ’s sacrifice and the gift of the Holy Spirit, this forgiving way of doing justice is not out of reach. It is being taken up in communities across this country, and has been alive in native and indigenous cultures for generations. What’s more, it abides within each of us. We might need to peel back the layers of retribution and individualism that mask it, but at our core dwells this desire, God’s desire to love one another as God loves us. May it be so. Amen.
--Caitlin Morneau
Image source 1: https://daily.jstor.org/catholics-against-racism/
Image source 2: https://catholicworker.substack.com/p/the-catholic-worker-calls-christians
Quotation source 1
Quotation source 2
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