Why Is It So Hard To Forgive?

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, September 13, 2020

“The vengeful will suffer the Lord’s vengeance, for he remembers their sins in detail. Forgive your neighbor’s injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven” (Sirach 28:1-2) “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times? Jesus answered, ‘I say to you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” 

Sisters and brothers, as young people, our parents, grand-parents, guardians, faith formation teachers, priests and even our school teachers taught us to forgive people who have wronged us because it is the right thing to do. As matured people now, you would think that we should have matured in the act of forgiveness. But we still find it so hard to forgive. Of course, what is right is not always easy to do. The right thing can also be the most difficult thing. The question then is, why is it so hard to forgive? Before we delve into it, let us figure out what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is the medicine of healing that heals not just one person but two and sometimes more. It heals the wounded one and the one who inflicted the wound. Its effect can also heal a family or society or nation. To forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover that the prisoner was you. So, why is it so hard to forgive? There are a number of reasons, but due to time constraints, I will reflect some of them with you. 

• It is difficult to forgive because the human consciousness has a hard time living in the present. The human mind is a roamer, as it roams, it brings back sad memories. It recalls the past that injured us, the way we were hurt by someone’s words or actions, it causes us to cling to such moments. With that, we become prisoners of the past. The more we think about the past, the stronger we hold on to it, thereby making forgiveness unattainable. Prayer and meditation can help us empty those unwanted thoughts that make us sad. Seek counseling too, and rely on God’s word as well.
• A closer look at human behavior suggests we may be wired to revenge and to get even when hurt. When our pride or self-esteem is injured, we want to retaliate. 
• We resist forgiveness because we wait for the offender to accept responsibility: “I will never forgive him because he does not want to accept responsibility for his action.”
• When we are hurt, we tend to assign causes or reasons for the behavior of the offender: “He does not love or care about me,” “She did it purposely to get me into trouble,” “He wants me dead,” “She does not like my tribe/race.” These judgments make it hard to forgive. 
• We are scared of being hurt again or the same behavior repeating itself, as such we shut ourselves away, put up defense mechanism to prevent being hurt again. Regardless of the benefits of this approach, its disadvantage is huge. 
• Believing that your offender deserves to be punished will make it hard to forgive. Holding a grudge against someone may be your own way of dishing our punishment.
• Lack of empathy for others makes it hard to forgive them. Empathy is the psychological highway to forgive another. Empathy helps us go beyond what has happened and to see if our offender has a problem that needs a professional attention.
• They have not apologized. 
• We want to satisfy our sense of justice: “They don’t deserve my forgiveness.” 
• We think that forgiveness is letting the offender off the hook without punishment. 
• We want to harm them as much as they had done to us.
• We find it difficult to forgive because we convince ourselves that the offender is incapable of repentance or change. We stop seeing any good in them.