I had a powerful lesson in forgiveness last summer, taught to me by Michael, a remarkable young man who is mentally handicapped. In the short time I had gotten to know Michael, his sparkling eyes, infectious laugh and perpetual good nature had endeared him to me. But one day I heard him talking about his childhood. In a calm and clear voice, this handsome young man in his 20s spoke of parents who had hit him, burned him with cigarettes and who, when he was a child, often gave him beer to drink, laughing at him as he stumbled around the room.
I was horrified as he spoke, unable to fathom that kind of treatment to a soul this gentle, kind and vulnerable. It was a mental image that would haunt my prayer for a long time. But so would Michael’s next words. “They couldn’t help it,” he said softly. “They didn’t know how to be good parents and that’s sad.”
With those words, Michael showed me a compassion and forgiveness for his parents I could barely comprehend. “They couldn’t help it. That’s sad.” He felt sad for the people who had abused him. There was none of my anger, bitterness or need for revenge.
I think of Michael when I read in today’s gospel, “Forgive us the wrong we have done as we forgive those who wrong us.”
Today Jesus offers us a very simple prayer with a number of challenges. He invites us to trust in God for the things we need, to avoid being showy in our prayer and the one I stumble on, forgiveness. The exact words of Jesus make us pause. “As we have forgiven;” I cringe at that. I don’t want God to forgive the way I do, begrudgingly and with a secret scorecard of hurts in my heart. I want God to give me a pardon much better than that. I want forgiveness with great love, compassion and generosity. The way God forgives. The way Michael forgives.
In the community of people where Michael lives, they pray the Our Father saying, “In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.” In the thousands of hurts Michael has absorbed over his young life, he has forgiven. God asks me to do the same, to forgive over and over with a generous Michael heart.
It’s not something I can do on my own. I ponder that for a while and realize that knowing that is probably the very gift God wants to give me.
Maureen McCann Waldron
The most important part of my life is my family – Jim my husband of 47 years and our two children. Our daughter Katy, a banker here in Omaha, and her husband John, have three wonderful children: Charlotte, Daniel and Elizabeth Grace. Our son Jack and his wife, Ellie, have added to our joy with their sons, Peter and Joseph.
I think family life is an incredible way to find God, even in (or maybe I should say, especially in) the most frustrating or mundane moments.
I am a native of the East Coast after graduating in 1971 from Archbishop John Carroll High School in suburban Philadelphia. I graduated from Creighton University in 1975 with a degree in Journalism and spent most of the next 20 years in corporate public relations in Omaha. I returned to Creighton in the 1990s and completed a master’s degree in Christian Spirituality in 1998.
As our children were growing up, my favorite times were always family dinners at home when the four of us would talk about our days. But now that our kids are gone from home, my husband and I have rediscovered how nice it is to have a quiet dinner together. I also have a special place in my heart for family vacations when the kids were little and four of us were away from home together. It’s a joy to be with my growing family.
Writing a Daily Reflection is always a graced moment, because only with God’s help could I ever write one. I know my own life is hectic, disjointed and imperfect and I know most of us have lives like that. I usually write from that point of view and I always seem to find some sentence, some word in the readings that speaks right to me, in all of my imperfection. I hope that whatever I write is in some way supportive of others.
It’s an incredibly humbling experience to hear from someone who was touched by something I wrote. Whether the note is from someone across campus or across the world, it makes me realize how connected we are all in our longing to grow closer to God.
