(photo: Edgar Beltran, 2025)
Pope Leo XIV had important things to say about forgiveness in his General Audience on Wednesday of this week. His remarks linked forgiveness to the example of Jesus Christ when he appeared to the disciples after his resurrection (John 20:19-31), and how Jesus appears without anger or desire for revenge, but rather with meekness and joy in God’s love for us.
Pope Leo begins with an observation of the typical human situation: “When we get up again after a trauma caused by others, often the first reaction is anger, the desire to make someone pay for what we have suffered.” He goes on to contrast that with the example of Jesus Christ in appearing to the disciples after his resurrection: “The Risen One does not react in this way.” It is important for us to understand that the exemplary reaction of Jesus is still a human reaction, because Jesus Christ is human. The Catechism of the Catholic Church established that and explains it to us (paras. 464-479). And because Jesus is human, he exemplifies what is possible for us: responding to transgressions and injuries in a way that ultimately has us living in meekness and joy in God’s love for us.
In exemplifying the possibility of meekness and joy as a response to transgressions and injuries, Jesus serves as a model for how this is possible for us, and calls us to follow his example. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (para. 520) puts it this way:
In all his life, Jesus presents himself as our model. He is the “perfect man”, who invites us to become his disciples and follow him. In humbling himself, he has given us an example to imitate, through his prayer he draws us to pray, and by his poverty he calls us to accept freely the privation and persecutions that may come our way.
Pope Leo explains that in not responding to transgressions and injury with anger, motives of vengeance, and gestures of power, but rather with meekness and joy in God’s love for us, there is tremendous power. As he puts it, when Jesus appears to the disciples:
It is a moment that expresses extraordinary power: Jesus, after descending into the abysses of death to liberate those who were imprisoned there, enters the closed room of those who are paralyzed by fear, bringing them a gift that no-one would have dared to hope for: peace.
There is a wonderful paradox in this: extraordinary power, and then also peace. Two things you might not quickly pair together in your mind: power and peace. Yet the example is given to us in Jesus Christ. To point to this paradox even more directly, Pope Leo recounts, “His greeting is simple, almost ordinary: ‘Peace be with you!'” (John 20:19).
How is this possible for us? How can we emerge from hurtful events and people in our lives with extraordinary power and yet also peace? Pope Leo explains that for Jesus, “The reason is profound: Jesus is now fully reconciled with everything he has suffered. There is not a shadow of resentment.” For us, especially as disciples (in its original meaning of being “learners”), the insight and lesson is that we can emerge from the transgressions and injuries we have experienced with power and peace, by reconciling with any and all of those transgressions and injuries, and eliminating any and all resentments we carry about those events and people,
This is exactly what forgiveness processes are about: reconciling with hurtful events and eliminating resentment. A good forgiveness process has you recall and re-experience a hurtful event in all its dimensions, and then using empathy (fundamental sameness of ourselves with all others) to replace all of the involved negative emotions, with positive emotions of quiet acceptance and love — sound familiar? That quiet acceptance and love is the meekness and joy that Pope Leo is talking about. Examples of good forgiveness processes are the REACH forgiveness process and the Guideposts for Forgiving that I can teach a group in a Live and Forgive presentation, guided retreat, small group series, or wilderness walk.
Even knowing about good forgiveness processes like the ones have mentioned, responding to transgressions and injuries with meekness and joy may still sound like something that is beyond our capability — just too perfect for our imperfections. Well the good news on that is that we don’t have to do it alone, and the person who can help us is the perfect person for the job — Jesus Christ himself. The idea and word “enables” is the key to what we’re talking about here. The way it works is that we actually become part of Jesus Christ in our own life, and live his life — and most importantly that includes responding to transgressions and injuries with meekness and the joy of God’s love for us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (para. 521) explains in no uncertain terms, “Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived.” The relationship actually goes both ways too! Not only can we participate in Jesus’ meekness and joy that are part of his life, but Jesus also explains in the Gospel of John (17:21) that he is in us: “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” When Jesus Christ is in you, his capability for meekness and joy in God’s love for us is within you as well — and now it’s yours! The Catechism of the Catholic Church (para. 521) reinforces it even more:
By his incarnation, he, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man. We are called only to become one with him, for he enables us as the members of his Body to share in what he lived for us in his flesh as our model.
You see the word “enables” in there again? That’s the deal: Jesus enables us to forgive and reconcile with the hurtful and bad things that have happened to us.
There is another word that shows up over and over again when we’re talking about forgiveness: peace. It’s both the goal and the reward of forgiveness, at least for the person doing the forgiving, if not also for the person who receives forgiveness as well. It is a scientifically studied and confirmed mental state that results from forgiveness. The mental state of peace mirrors a spiritual state of peace. The attainment of peace will never happen passively when a situation needs forgiveness. Despite the popular adage “Time heals all wounds,” we know for a fact that it often doesn’t. In reality, that stretch of time after a hurtful event can be filled with negative emotions of anger, grief, sadness, shame, and despair that only get worse with ruminating about the event over time. As Pope Leo explains in his address:
“[W]e often mask our wounds out of pride, or for fear of appearing weak. We say, ‘it doesn’t matter’, ‘it is all in the past’, but we are not truly at peace with the betrayals that have wounded us. At times we prefer to hide our effort to forgive so as not to appear vulnerable and to risk suffering again. Jesus does not…the Lord repeats: ‘Peace be with you!'”
Masking our wounds and hiding our efforts to forgive are behaviors based on and responding to fear, which means that in and of themselves they prevent attaining peace for yourself because your central concern is always fear. The example of Jesus Christ teaches us that reconciling with hurtful events and eliminating resentment through forgiveness is the way to peace. We also know that we are enabled to do this by our presence in Jesus Christ, and his presence in us. His presence in us includes his peace if we will work our way toward it and embrace it. In the Gospel of John (14:27), Jesus promises his peace:
Peace I leave with you,
my peace I give to you.
Not as the world gives
do I give it to you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled;
be not afraid.
The final line encourages us to heal our troubled hearts, and to take fear out of the driver’s seat for ourselves.
People who engage with forgiveness, either by doing some deep forgiving themselves, or being someone who deeply experiences being forgiven, get a unique reward that you almost can’t get unless you go through tough stuff and work with deep, real, full and lasting forgiveness — especially as a deep healing process that a person needs. This is where there’s another paradox: the worse the experiences you are trying to make your way back from through forgiveness, the bigger the reward of meekness, joy, love, and peace, you have waiting for you. There are people of wondrous peace who have a unique insight and wisdom about life, who will also tell you that it was expensively obtained through their own tough times and deep struggles with woundedness and forgiveness. These people are rare, they are especially regarded by Jesus Christ with love, and are a gift to the rest of us. Again, paradoxically, if we are “lucky” enough to be one of these people, Pope Leo tells us that we are sent to others, to show our own woundedness, our own healing, to draw close to others who need the same. When we do so, we receive the Holy Spirit, act without fear, and witness to an undefeatable peace. As Pope Leo explains it:
Dear brothers and sisters, we too are sent. The Lord shows us his wounds and says: Peace be with you. Do not be afraid to show your wounds healed by mercy. Do not be afraid to draw close to those who are trapped in fear or guilt. May the breath of the Spirit make us, too, witnesses of this peace and this love that is stronger than any defeat.
I have to put a plug in here for St. Francis of Assisi. On the one hand, St. Francis was always explicit about his vainglorious and decadent past and his own needs for forgiveness. At the same time, St. Francis is one of the saints that received the stigmata the visible sign of Christ’s passion in the crucifixion and joyful resurrection when the wounds were the proof of his resurrection. What did St. Francis do with his own personal life experience of penance, forgiveness, and deep experience of Christ? He made it his business to tell others about it, and to draw close to the poor, sick, and pushed away. Most importantly, he taught others to do the same. My favorite quote of his is, “I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.” — That always includes you! Don’t forget that!
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 forgiveness, 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 — he will be glad to connect with you for a conversation. Please type in your email and click “Subscribe” below to stay connected and get Live and Forgive articles delivered to you.
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