Why would I ever forgive that person?

/ Tom Delaney, O.F.S., M.A. Theo., Cert. Catech.

(photo: Wild Geranium, Tom Delaney, Sherburne County, Minnesota, 2025)

We have a small parade of deer stroll past our place regularly in the evenings. When I go out on our south pasture, I see the large matted down circles of grass where they have been bedding down for the night, both in the pasture and in the taller grass on the other side of the fence line. In poking around those spots, I found patches of Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum), which is a favored forage for deer. It is a very small but truly ornate flower that can catch your eye in the woods. It has a very gentle purple hue with lines of deeper purple and pink pistil (center) that all stand out against its green foliage. It must be nice going to bed and waking up with one of your favorite foods next to you. Where do I sign up for that? Happy deer.

Why would I ever forgive that person? Forgiveness is a process that has a beginning like any other process does — that’s part of what makes it a process. Most of not all processes require some amount of energy to get started, and forgiveness is no different. Real forgiveness requires some personal motivation to get started, it doesn’t just start on its own.

For any person, that energy and motivation to start in on a forgiveness process can be hard to come up with. After all, we’re talking about doing something positive in response to a negative event that hurt us — that’s well beyond paradoxical. In addition there’s the whole issue of justice: the hurt was unjustified and an injustice, the negative emotions I have in response to the injustice are justified, why would I change that up? I feel like I’m sitting very justified! The research-validated models and processes of forgiveness (e.g. Robert Enwright, Everett Worthington) don’t ever try to cover up the justice issue. Hurting people is an injustice, aversion to the hurting person and event is justified, and forgiveness is simply not a deserved response to the person who hurt you. The best models of forgiveness consistently refer to forgiveness in these situations as “the unmerited gift,” the “undeserved gift,” and as “altruism.”

So, who would anyone even consider forgiving someone? I am going to share with you the ways people can be motivated as listed by the best research in forgiveness:

  • To stop the pain and fatigue that holding on to negative emotions is causing you.
  • To heal myself from the hurt and pain of the life event.
  • To be able to really move on with life, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually free from the event.
  • To prevent that person from hurting me now, even in remembering the event, and in my future.
  • To be healthier mentally, physically, and physiologically — to take good care of myself.
  • To just feel better about myself, and my life.
  • To deprive the person of any satisfaction or pride in having hurt me.
  • To live out my Catholic faith and values for myself, so that I have a faith in action that is real.
  • To live out my Catholic faith and values for the person who hurt me, even undeservedly, as the example of Jesus Christ (e,g. imitatio Christi, check out The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis).

Any or all of these reasons may be the motivation for someone to start in on a forgiveness process. I think that they also show a very critical precursor to considering forgiveness, and that’s self-awareness. Each and every one of those listed reasons hinges on a person being self-aware of something within themselves. It may be self-awareness of the way they feel emotionally, tor the state of their mental or physical health, or their beliefs and values — any number of things that shape our being in this world and make us who we are. Without any self-awareness, it is hard to realize when you’ve had enough of unforgiveness and need to move on to forgiveness for your own good or anyone else’s good.

Self-awareness is probably a topic for a whole separate article, but I will take just a few lines in this one to suggest pathways to self-awareness. So often the problem with awareness regarding ourselves is that we have a loud swirl of thoughts, feelings, messages from the outside world going on in our head. That can become a real raging cacophony (an out of tune and synch orchestra) between your ears that prevents you from even knowing how you feel and what exactly you’re thinking. The solution is taking time to sit quietly and lower the volume. That’s right, it’s that simple…quiet sitting. Lowering the volume takes time, but quiet sitting is a time-tested and proven way to get back to some basic self-awareness. There are very cool old Latin words for it like quies and (my personal favorite) recollectio, meaning actually reassembling yourself into a whole again, but make no mistakes about it: it’s grabbing a seat and being quiet. Like I said, a topic for another article. Please do not accidentally start a practice of “sitting loudly” for yourself in the meantime — I’ll think “I should have ever even brought it up.” 😛

Next article coming soon!

This text is an original work of its author Tom Delaney and was entirely composed without the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

If your parish or faith community is seeking a deeper experience of healing, mercy, and spiritual renewal, Live and Forgive is here to help. To begin the conversation, email Live and Forgive presenter and facilitator Tom Delaney at tom@liveandforgive.com—Tom will be glad to connect with you in a spirit of welcome, respect, and shared faith.

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