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Demythologizing Forgiveness
The gospels tell us that the disciples asked Jesus how many times they were obligated to forgive others. They must have been taken aback when Jesus said that they ought to forgive, not just seven times (the number often associated with God's power and omnipotence), but seventy times seven!
It is quite likely that when we think of the professional and personal conflicts in which we are involved, forgiving seventy times seven seems just as insurmountable to us as it must have to those first persons who heard Jesus' words. However, if we draw on the recent findings of psychology, a Johnny-come-lately in the study of forgiveness, we may find some help in better living out this gospel imperative.
Everett Worthington explains the forgiveness dilemma in terms of the need to overcome what he calls the fear conditioning process; that is, when we are hurt by someone, our brain records that memory and organizes us to avoid being exposed to that same injury a second time. This very adaptive ability explains why you do not have to tell a small child to avoid a hot stove once they have touched it. We have survived for millions of years by remembering what has hurt and by avoiding it.
People who have hurt us in some way are no exception. After the hurt, we would prefer not to see them. When we perceive the potential for more hurt, for example, when we see a person who has offended us, our body's stress response system is engaged. We attempt to avoid the person, and if we cannot, perhaps because we have to work with them in some capacity, we turn to what Worthington calls "defensive fighting."
Reconciliation: the La Salette Charism and How We Can Live It
Reconciliation: the La Salette
Charism and How We Can Live It
compiled and edited by Fr. Ron Gagné, M.S.
As believers, we are works in progress, always needing to learn more about God, ourselves and how we are to live with others as Christ would have us do. The following is a primer – a basic summary – of the mission of reconciliation which God gave to the Church. The La Salette Missionaries have a special affinity for the ministry of reconciliation based on the event of the Apparition of Our Lady of La Salette on September 19, 1846. In order to facilitate reflection on their mission, the following are reflections from many authors about reconciliation – its origins, content and expression in the Church and the world of today
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The Intimacy of Reconciliation
The Theology of Biology I received a “C” in High School biology. The teacher was being generous. In fact, I didn’t have the least bit of interest in science and was unconvinced that anything Mr. Harris had to say was going to change my teenage life, much less have eternal consequences. I was wrong.
Had I listened to my biology teacher I would have learned many things – among them, undoubtedly, I would have learned that cells have something called cilia, short microscopic“hairs”. Further, as humans, we have cilia – we call them eyelashes.
When humans sit eyelash to eyelash, we have “ciliation”. When two people are brought back together with one another with intense power, we have reconciliation. When God is the One governing and ordering the force and the movement, offering the opportunity and the transformation, we have the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist.
Put simply, reconciliation is an eyelash-toeyelash encounter with the love and the mercy of God. It is intimate and interpersonal. More than an exchange of words or pleasantries, sorrows or penitence (though it is that), reconciliation is an intimate exchange of death and life; God replaces our death with his life – once again, in the most personal of ways.
Reconciliation: a Challenging Ministry for Everyone
Reconciliation: a Challenging Ministry for Everyone
(PDF File)
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Spirituality and Charism
Pope John Paul II on La Salette (PDF, 128KB)
"The Face of the Reconciler; Bringing the La Salette Charism to Life" by Fr. Normand Theroux, M.S. (PDF, 464KB)
"Four La Salette Studies: on the Unrelenting Opposition the Apparition Encountered" by Fr. Donald Paradis, M.S. (with reflection questions)
- Part One: A Meddling Metropolitan (PDF, 520KB)
- Part Two: An Episode at Ars (PDF, 1.3MB)
- Part Three: A Desperate De Bonald (PDF, 1MB)
- Part Four: Aftershocks and Tremors (PDF, 956KB)
"Notes and Quotes on the Themes of the La Salette Apparition" collected by Fr. Donald Paradis, M.S. (PDF, 1.5MB)
Excerpts from the La Salette Rule (PDF, 108KB)
"A Search into the Origins and Evolution of the Charism of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette" by Fr. Eugene G. Barrette, M.S. (PDF, 366KB)
Icon of Our Lady of La Salette: A Meditation
Meditation suggests sustained contact with the deeper layers of reality, a careful surveying of the unseen but real context in which we live our lives. It connects us to our roots in God and to our irrepressible desire for God.
This month we feature a unique icon of Our Lady of La Salette. This is appropriate for a number of reasons, the first of which relates to the nature of icons and the access to the inner world they offer. Icons are often described in terms such as these: prayer enthroned on wood, merciful grace made nearly tangible, gates to the realm of the unseen, points of intersection between the world we see and think we know and the world we do not see and should know better.
Forgiven: A Meditation on a Mallet, a Nail and La Salette
I recall your Gospel words to “come and see.” I’ve listened time and time again to your Mother’s words at La Salette: “Unless they are converted...” But how often have I thought of this invitation as applying especially to the other sinners in the world, and not so much to me? It’s been easier to keep the call of ongoing conversion on the back burner.
However, in special moments, Lord, when I look at myself honestly, at times I weep for what my life has become. But maybe these tears are the beginning of my true change of heart. I’ve often meditated on your call to discipleship. I’ve often heard your words spoken by your Mother at La Salette. But somehow I still prefer to retain the mallet and the nail.Desperately I hang onto the mallet and the nail that not only have crucified you but also deepen my own emptiness. They are apt symbols of my many attachments, my blindness, indifference, individualism, and my materialistic view of life. I’m very comfortable with them. On the other hand, Lord, I find conversion very scary. It demands a change of my heart and that will hurt. It requires a turning from myself to you and that is not easy. Above all, conversion demands my letting go. And so, I hold tight to the mallet and the nail.
Yet, Lord, I truly believe that throughout my life you have been supporting me. At times I have felt your strong arms lifting me up in times of trial, urging me to look at myself more honestly. You seem to be hoping that I will finally understand that I am not so much hurting you as hurting myself. And I see that you lovingly refuse to let me go!
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