Resentment and Forgiveness

When an offence wounds us, the heart keeps the trace of the harm received and revives it. Resentment is that grudge one nurtures against the one who has wronged us, the inner refusal to let the offence go. The Old Law already forbade it; Christ goes further, making forgiveness the very condition of God’s forgiveness.

Resentment

Resentment relives the offence, nurtures against the offender a bitterness that bides its time, wishes him to pay. The Law of Moses already forbade it, binding it to love of neighbour: “You shall not take revenge nor bear a grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Leviticus 19:18 Paul ranks this bitterness among what must vanish from the Christian’s heart: “Let all bitterness, all anger, all resentment, all malice be banished from you.” Ephesians 4:31

Resentment wounds first the one who carries it: it shuts the heart in the past offence and poisons it as it chews the offence over. It wants also to do justice for itself, to collect its due from the offender. But justice belongs to God, and handing the offence over to him delivers from this weight: “Do not avenge yourselves; let the anger of God act, for it is written: Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” Romans 12:19

Forgiving as God forgives

To resentment held, Christ opposes forgiveness, and makes it the condition of the forgiveness God grants us: “If you forgive men their faults, your heavenly Father will forgive you also; but if you do not forgive, your Father will not forgive you either.” Matthew 6:14 This forgiveness does not count the times. To Peter, who asked whether he should forgive up to seven times, Christ answers that the measure is without measure: “I do not tell you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” Matthew 18:22 And it must come from the heart, not the lips alone: “So will my heavenly Father treat you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from the depths of his heart.” Matthew 18:35

The reason for this command is that we ourselves were forgiven first. God has remitted us an infinite debt, our sins, and he asks us to remit in turn the far smaller debt of our neighbour: “Forgive one another, as God has forgiven you in Christ.” Ephesians 4:32 Christ gave the measure of it on the Cross, praying for the very ones who were putting him to death: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34

The remedy day by day

Against resentment, one must will to forgive: to make this act of the will, without waiting for the offender to repent or apologise, as Christ forgave his executioners before any regret on their part. Forgiveness is accomplished as soon as one renounces revenge, even while the wound remains raw: it does not require that the pain have vanished nor that affection have returned; the feeling will heal later, or not, but it does not command forgiveness.

Before a deep offence, forgiveness can seem beyond one’s strength, and one cannot always give it at once. It is then the work of time: one advances toward it little by little, carrying first the desire to forgive before becoming able to. The one who cannot yet forgive, but desires it and asks God for the grace to become able, already holds the beginning of forgiveness. Forgiveness fulfilled is obtained from God by prayer, as a grace he grants to whoever asks; to labour at forgiving is not a fault, so long as one does not settle into the refusal to will it.

When the memory of the offence returns, one must hand it over to God instead of letting it turn in the heart, and pray for the one who wounded us, for the heart that prays for another ceases to wish him harm. To forgive does not mean to deny the offence nor to renounce justice: one can forgive from the depths of the heart while letting justice take its course, that a wrong be repaired or a guilty man answer for his acts; and to forgive the one who has harmed us does not oblige us to expose ourselves again to his harm. Forgiveness renounces revenge and restores goodwill to the offender; it removes neither the right that justice be done, nor the prudence that guards against a harm that repeats itself.