Bob: Forgiveness — the thing everyone agrees is good for you, like vegetables or sleep, and that most of us find equally difficult to actually do.
Mara: Today we’re looking at work from Tom Delaney (O.F.S.), a Franciscan educational psychologist exploring what to do when forgiveness feels genuinely impossible — the theology, the psychology, and the hard road in between. Let’s start with what happens when you can’t even get to the starting line.
When Self-Care Isn’t Enough: Forgiving for God
Bob: The usual pitch for forgiveness leans on self-interest — lower anxiety, better mental health, higher self-esteem. But what happens when the grievance is so large that those benefits don’t feel worth it, or when someone doesn’t care enough about themselves to value them at all?
Mara: The post frames it directly: “If it were up to me, I would never forgive this person — but I’ll do it for God.” That’s the opening the piece is really built around.
Bob: And the reason that move works is practical — it doesn’t require you to minimize the grievance. The injustice stays exactly as large as it is. You’re just changing the reason you act.
Mara: Right. The post notes this can even serve as a first step for someone in a “why not give God a chance?” place in their life — not a full theological commitment, just enough of an opening to enter the process.
Bob: Which is a remarkably low threshold, and probably the right one.
Mara: The piece anchors all of this in the Canticle of the Sun. St. Francis writes: “Praised be my Lord for those who forgive on account of your love, and endure weakness and trials. Blessed are those who shall endure in peace, for by you, most high, they shall be crowned.”
Bob: So Francis isn’t promising an easy road. Weakness and trials are named explicitly — treated as expected, as part of the process, not as signs that something has gone wrong.
Mara: And the post argues those difficulties carry real value. The knowledge gained through weakness and trials can be, in its words, “absolutely transformative and change a person’s life forever” — and then equip that person to help others on the same path.
Bob: The best teachers usually learned the hard way. That tracks.
Mara: The post closes on the question “What’s it all for?” — because an uninspiring answer there shuts the whole effort down. St. Francis points toward peace: not just external peace in relationships, but internal peace. Even a royal-level of it, the post says, reached through the process even when you started it for someone else’s reasons entirely.
Bob: So the entry point doesn’t have to be noble. It just has to be real.
Mara: Weakness, trials, and a borrowed motivation — apparently that’s enough to start. We’ll keep following where that road leads.
Live and Forgive 