Bread on the Trail: Unlimited Forgiveness

By Deacon Keith Fournier

© Third Millennium, LLC

 

 

“Peter approached Jesus and asked him, “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.” Matt. 18

 

"History is not simply a fixed progression toward what is better - but rather, an event of freedom. Specifically, it is a struggle between freedoms that are in mutual conflict: a conflict between two loves - the love of God to the point of disregarding self and the love of self to the point of disregarding God (John Paul II, Christian Family in the Modern World, n. 6)"

 

There is a golden calf around which our age now seems to worship, the idol of choice. When freedom is exercised without reference to truth and our obligations to one another in solidarity, it becomes a counterfeit that leads to the slavery of sin. The truth is that some choices are simply wrong and even if we are “free” to make them, we must not. The real question we should concern ourselves with is what we are choosing …and who we become through our choices. That wonderful champion of authentic human freedom, the late Pope John Paul II, wrote frequently about of the implications of the exercise of human freedom. This “conflict between two loves”, this “event of freedom” is experienced in each of our lives on a daily basis. The recurring questions of Eden still echo. How will we exercise our "freedom"? At which tree will we make our decision? Will it be the tree of disobedience, where the first Adam chose against love or the tree on Golgotha’s hill where the second Adam, the Son of God, chose the obedience of Redemptive Love?

 

One of the choices we are invited to make daily is to live and love as Jesus. The disciples asked Him a simple but profound question, “how often must I forgive?”. Their proposal of seven times was radically different than the prevailing wisdom concerning forgiveness. Jesus tells them— and us - to choose unlimited forgiveness. Men and women who live this way trod the path of true freedom and bring others along. They continue to make the Lord present in our midst. One such man is Steven McDonald, a New York City Police Officer who, while on patrol in Central Park in 1986 stopped to question three teenagers and was shot in the head and neck, rendering him paralyzed from the neck down. He chose, after much soul searching, to forgive his young assailant. He now spends his extraordinary life proclaiming forgiveness as the path to true peace throughout the whole world. I toured Northern Ireland in the late nineties with Steven and “Project Reconciliation.” I saw the extraordinary power of his message and his witness. It is, after all, the message of Jesus Christ, the one to whom Steven has become so wonderfully conformed that his mere presence in a room brings people to repentance and forgiveness.

 

Steven travels with his wonderful wife Patti Ann and their son Connor, whom she was carrying when Steven was shot. Many said Steven would not live long after his injury. He has fooled them all. He has a mission and the Lord whom He loves so sincerely propels him by grace. From that wonderful wheelchair he shines the light and beauty of redemptive love on all whose path he crosses. A man of few words, he speaks with his entire countenance. In the tradition we read that the beloved disciple John, as he grew older, needed to be carried from Christian community to Christian community because he could no longer walk. When he arrived in the assembly he would simply say “Love one another”. Steven reminds me of John. In Stevens own words:  “Forgiveness is a topic that people need to hear about today more than ever. As human beings we need forgiveness, whether we are giving it or asking for it.  And people make up countries. So that means countries need forgiveness and can offer forgiveness. Forgiveness is really about our own healing. We may experience slight offenses, or they may be profound.  But in the end it is our choice, and it is the survival of our own souls that is at stake”.

 

In an age clamoring for “choice”, and making so many wrong choices that lead to sadness, despair and captivity, we who walk the way of Jesus Christ are called to demonstrate the true freedom that comes from making the right choice, the choice of love, the choice of unlimited forgiveness. People like Steven McDonald are the saints in our midst who show us the way. In the “struggle between freedoms” and the “conflict between loves”, he made the choice of unlimited forgiveness. May we all do the same.