20 November 1990
Rome, Italy

My dear Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Christ,

When I was a seminarian in the National Seminary in Irelnd, there was a stern old man in charge of the young boys who worked in the kitchen of the College. Every night he would gather the young members of the staff around him in order to pray the Rosary. At the end of the Rosary he used to add various petitions, one of which was: "Now, let us pray for our enemies, if we have any." This was rather amusing to the young boys who thought that the old man considered each of them to be his personal enemy, at least to judge from the remarks he would make in the course of the day's work. The old man for his part thought that all his remarks were made with the best of intentions, namely, to make sure that the work of the kitchen was properly done. The old man had no difficulty about praying for his enemies because he did not think he had any. Others did not see it that way. They felt that he needed a lot of forgiveness from them.

Most of us think that we have more forgiveness to give than to receive. We like to think that more people are unfair or unjust to us than we are to them. Because we think in that way, we find it hard to offer forgiveness, real forgiveness, to others. We think much more of how hard it is for us to forgive than we do about the difficulty that others may have in forgiving us. We measure out our forgiveness like money, very carefully and with much calculation. I doubt if we use the same care when we come to measuring the cost of that forgiveness which we expect and receive from others. If we spent more time thinking about what it cost others to forgive us, rather than about what it costs us to forgive others, we would be more successful in taking resentment out of our hearts.

I have been reflecting on our personal experience of offering and receiving forgiveness. What about forgiveness as experienced by a group, a society, a nation? We have witnessed in recent years some apologies being offered by one nation to another for wounds inflicted in the course of a war, though many decades have passed. The world would be a happier place if such collective apologies were made more often. But, as with individuals, forgiveness is measured out meagerly and with much calculation.

For us, members of COR UNUM, who think much about the poverty and hunger in Third World countries, and of what we could do to alleviate it, how much thought have we given to forgiveness? Not that the Third World has hurt us, but perhaps the peoples of the Third World think, at least some of them, that it is we who have need of much forgiveness from them. Leaving aside the facts of history and the injustices that colonial powers may have done in the past, it is probably true that the very fact of the present unequal distribution of wealth among the nations, causes resentment in the hearts of many in Third World countries. Where there is resentment, there is need for offering forgiveness. So we in the First World may be in more need than we realize of receiving forgiveness. St. Vincent de Paul is reputed to have said to the first Daughters of Charity that it would only be through the evident love in their hearts that the poor would be able to forgive them for the bread which they, the Sisters, were offering to them. Today, as in St. Vincent de Paul's day, people do not live by bread alone. The bread we offer must be seasoned well with the condiments of justice and of love.