(photo: Tom Delaney, Sherburne County, Minnesota, 2025)
There is a prodigious deer population here in our little corner of the oak savanna in Central Minnesota, maybe because of our proximity to Dunes State Forest and Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. It seems that they appreciate the network of walking trails through the woods and frequently use them to make their way to the pod and bed down around the southern pasture. The sight of young deer is a sign that the population is doing better than thriving — actually prospering! This doe and young deer walked through the red pines, mother in the lead and young one following in her steps. At one point they stopped together in a spot, and just spent some time being close, connected to each other, breathing the same air together. It was a natural and healthy thing for them to do, and their relationship is archetypal, mother and child depicted in countless icons . There’s just something about it that we know holds a great and profound wisdom. What can it be?
Today’s Liturgy of the Word contains a lot of insight into the power of forgiveness to change and even transform the forgiven person. When this happens, the forgiven person themself is in turn more likely to do acts of good (VanderWeele and Lee, 2025). You get the picture? As an act of good, forgiveness makes a causal chain, a positive contagion effect, in which the people who benefit from an act of good, and specifically like forgiveness, will in turn do acts of good for other people. Over time and numerous interpersonal relationships, acts of good multiply and the number of people who benefit from acts of good also multiply. This causal chain and positive contagion effect has been researched, and it has been seen that this multiplication effect eventually gets to the point where they are not aware of the original cause, and persons involved, in the act of good that they experience between them. When you think about this multiplication effect of forgiveness, you can see that it really has a lot of potential, at even the global scale as a civilization of love (John Paul II; VanderWeele and Lee, 2025). At the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, they have begun to envision a Global Forgiveness Movement. I started Live and Forgive while completing the forgiveness education and group facilitation training program for faith leaders in this Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University. Live and Forgive is an extension of the work for a global forgiveness movement at Harvard University.
Back to today’s Liturgy of the Word. The gospel reading is from Luke 13:1-9, and relates how Jesus emphasized the importance of repentance. Repentance comes from an old word in Latin, and basically means to “think again,” as in times when you have thought about yourself or a situation (or both) in the wrong way and need to think again. The original Koine Greek word in the gospel as written is metanoeō (μετανοέω), which means “change one’s mind.” With this in mind, we can understand that Jesus intends to teach about how people think again and change their minds — two things that are absolutely critical in the forgiveness process, not only for the person doing the forgiving, but also potentially for the person being forgiven. Research shows that as much as forgiveness has the power to change the forgiving person’s mind for the better, it also has the power to change the mind of the person being forgiven, in ways that make it more likely that they will change the way they are living, and do their own good acts in turn after being forgiven.
The parable Jesus relates is about a fig tree that isn’t bearing fruit, and an owner who wants to cut it down because it is exhausting the earth it is planted in and yet isn’t productive. The story adds a gardener who persuades the owner to all time for the earth around the tree to be cultivated and fertilized for at least a year, and suggesting that doing so will cause the tree to bear fruit. As much as one can think that the story is meant to convey that the clock is ticking for all us fig trees and we’d better get our act together before the owner comes back, the real insight is that the ability to bear fruit depends on whether our “ground” is cultivated and fertilized with nutrients for growth. When we see a person who looks fruitless, the tree with no figs, rather than thinking it is the nature of that person to be fruitless, we can consider that the cause of their fruitless state is that they are growing in, and coming from, ground that lacks cultivation and fertilization with nutrients — the necessary forces of vitality in all living things really, not just fig trees. We can also see that when we provide a person the things really needed for their vitality and growth, they will bear fruit. At this point also, don’t forget what’s important about fruit! What is the purpose of a fruit? What does fruit contain? If you guessed that it contains a seed, and potentially a lot of them, which in turn will cause even more fruit-bearing trees (and people) — you got it!
Forgiveness works the same way as what the gardener is proposing. It is an act of good, an altruistic act that the REACH Forgiveness Model even terms “undeserved,” that gives the forgiven person an experience of love that is bigger than them, especially in those cases where forgiveness is motivated by faith in God and the lessons of the Gospel. Like I said, research has demonstrated that an act of good like forgiveness can impact the forgiven person to “think again” and “change their mind” in ways that in turn cause them to do acts of good themselves, a.k.a. bearing fruit. In this way, the act of forgiveness is the part of the gardener: “Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future.” When you forgive, someone your are that gardener.
And what about when you don’t forgive? When you don’t forgive, or can’t bring yourself to forgive, you are missing out on your opportunity to be the gardener. You are missing out on your opportunity to be transformed yourself, to find great importance and meaning in your life. The unwillingness or inability to forgive can happen for many reasons and is understandably very human. One of the most common reasons is that it seems like forgiveness is excusing and perpetuating the injustice that the transgressor did (cf. Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti). It seems that real justice would consist of inflicting some kind of loss in the life of that person, maybe even the loss of life itself.
As persons of faith, we share a belief that what God wants is what’s best for us. It’s a fundamental and cornerstone belief that we see in the first and opening paragraph of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. God wants a “blessed life” for us that we share with God. In a situation where we have been wronged or hurt, we know we don’t feel like forgiving the transgressor, but our faith simply must prompt us to at least consider the question, “What does God want?” We have an answer to that question in the alleluia before today’s gospel reading. The answer from God (Ezekiel 33:11): “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord, but rather in his conversion that he may live.” The answer tells us that God is more concerned about the conversion of a wrongdoer than any loss of life (or living) that could be inflicted upon them, We may think that justice demands this or that, and it could be true, but we must also redirect our thinking (think again, change our mind) to the fact that God is looking for the people who will give a wrongdoer what they need in order to have an opportunity for conversion that they are likely to take. In short, God is looking for gardeners.
When God is looking for gardeners, it is up to us whether we raise our hand and step forward to be one. It can be very difficult to let go of our own personal view that some things and some people are unforgivable, and deserve to be cut down like a fruitless fig tree. But scientific research shows that we are better off physically, mentally, even spiritually, when we are gardeners. Forgiveness of others is associated with subsequently lower levels of depression, anxiety, and psychological distress and higher levels of happiness, self-esteem, and emotional processing. Why wouldn’t we accept that invitation from God to be happy and feel good about ourselves, and give that to ourselves, especially after being wronged or hurt — a time when we most need to be good to ourselves in ways that are healing and restorative?
Be a gardener.
Please share these words with someone who needs them today.
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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