Thank you again for tuning into Blooming in the Desert. This episode we have brought back our special guest, Sub-Deacon Jon Failla to finish up our series on both the Pillars of Piety and on Forgiveness.
Blooming in the Desert – Episode 10 – Pillars of Piety Series Part 4 – Forgiveness Part 3
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FORGIVENESS Part 3
VIII. Further thoughts on forgiveness
There is another definition in Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary for “forgiving”. The definition is as follows: 1. willing or able to forgive 2. allowing room for error or weakness.
This definition goes a little further in that it brings to our attention another aspect of forgiveness. So far we have been discussing the need to forgive on a case by case basis, so to speak. In other words, when someone affronts us, then we are to forgive. And we are to do this over and over again as each situation calls for, imitating how God has mercy on us.
What is unique to the definition of “forgiving” compared to the definition we have been working with thus far is that with this word we are called on to adopt prior to any wrong committed by others a recognition of the very propensity in them that they cannot help but sin, fallen as they are. This recognition is further aided when in fact we recognize in ourselves this very same propensity for sin and error and the need for forgiveness for ourselves.
This type of forgiveness speaks of a spirit which “rushes ahead” of any given person or situation and lays the groundwork for the humility necessary to forgive the expected sin and affront that will happen. This type of forgiveness takes into account the expected trespasses because one knows that all are struggling in some way under their own particular burdens that God in His goodness has provided for them to help them turn to Him and repent.
This is brought out for us wonderfully by St. Paul in two particular passages.
Ephesians 4:32: And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.
Colossians 3:12-14: Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.
IX. A Reminder
We should always bear in mind when learning on these matters that we cannot isolate one teaching unto itself. We spoke about this on previous shows and noted that with the “Pillars of Piety”, one pillar or virtue feeds into the others and the others encapsulate the whole of each and of all the others within themselves.
Therefore to forgive more perfectly, we should remember that it is an effort and an “art” given into our hands to practice just like all the other virtues. We are working to more fully reflect God and this requires us to cleanse our hearts. As we spoke of earlier, we were created with a “good” nature but because of the Fall and our own subsequent sin, corruption attached itself to our good nature and hid the image of God.
To not forgive is part of the corruption and we are to struggle, by God’s grace, to learn to perform all of Christ’s commandments for the aid of our healing or salvation.
Saint Paul, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians says in Chapter 7, verse 1:
Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Now we must recognize that the power to forgive does not lie with us but with God. And in order to commune with Him to receive this grace, we pray. We more fully learn how to pray when we give alms and fast. We also can reverse any of these or interchange them and recognize that they all tie into and lead into each other.
We would like to offer this one section from “The Way of the Pilgrim and the Pilgrim Continues His Way“. It is from the section titled On the Power of Prayer. In this section the character in the book, The Skhimnik, reads from an article to his friends and talks about how prayer itself is the path of and to God and that when one undertakes this path, the path itself will direct the Christian. In other words, the one who practices prayer thus will do what he wills but as he does whatever he is doing, by praying ceaselessly, what he does will be purified over time with the effort of praying in all that he does.
In Point 5 of the article he says:
Pray somehow or other, only pray always and be disturbed by nothing. Be light in spirit and peaceful. Prayer will arrange everything and teach you. Remember what the Saints—John Chrysostom and Mark the Ascetic—say about the power of prayer. The first declares that prayer, even though it be offered by us who are full of sin, yet cleanses us at once. The latter says, “To pray somehow is within our power, but to pray purely is the gift of grace.” So offer to God what it is within your power to offer. Bring to Him at first just quantity (which is within your power), and God will pour upon you strength in your weakness. “Prayer, dry and distracted maybe, but continuous, will establish a habit and become second nature and turn itself into prayer that is pure, luminous, flaming, and worthy.”
So if we do not know how to forgive very well, we should not despair but understand with prayer and the other efforts given to us by the Church we may learn to forgive more perfectly over time, by God’s grace.
X. The Saint of Forgiveness, Dionysius of Zakynthos
From here.
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(In the midst of a description of this particular Saint and other details from his life, we have this following story preserved for us)
A certain stranger murdered the saint’s brother Constantine, an illustrious nobleman. Fearing his victim’s relatives, the stranger, by chance or by God’s will, sought refuge in the monastery where St Dionysius was the abbot. When the saint asked the fugitive why he was so frightened, he confessed his sin and revealed the name of the man he had murdered, asking to be protected from the family’s vengeance. St Dionysius wept for his only brother, as was natural. Then he comforted the murderer and hid him, showing him great compassion and love.
Soon the saint’s relatives came to the monastery with a group of armed men and told him what had happened. He pretended to know nothing about it. After weeping with them and trying to console them, he sent them off in the wrong direction. Then he told the murderer that he was the brother of the man he had killed. He admonished him as a father, and brought him to repentance. After forgiving him, St Dionysius brought him down to the shore and helped him to escape to another place in order to save his life. Because of the saint’s Christ-like virtue, he was granted the gift of working miracles.
XI. Sayings from various Holy Fathers and other Orthodox writers on Forgiveness
‘And forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors.’ For we have many sins. For we offend both in word and in thought, and very many things we do worthy of condemnation; and ‘if we say that we have no sin’ (I Jn. 1:8), we lie, as John says…The offenses committed against us are slight and trivial, and easily settled; but those which we have committed against God are great, and need such mercy as His only is. Take heed, therefore, lest for the slight and trivial sins against you, you shut out for yourself forgiveness from God for your very grievous sins. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechetical Lectures: Lecture 23 no. 16)
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Abba Poemen also said this about Abba Isidore that whenever he addressed the brothers in church he said only one thing, “Forgive your brother, so that you also may be forgiven.” The Desert Fathers
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Do we forgive our neighbors their trespasses? God also forgives us in His mercy. Do we refuse to forgive? God, too, will refuse to forgive us. As we treat our neighbors, so also does God treat us. The forgiveness, then, of your sins or unforgiveness, and hence also your salvation or destruction, depend on you yourself, man. For without forgiveness of sins there is no salvation. You can see for yourself how terrible it is. (I was not able to ascertain the source of this saying as it is ascribed to both St. Philotheos of Sinai and to St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, Journey to Heaven)
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Forgive and pray, in order to live your life serenely. And do not do to others that which you do not want them to do to you, or return the evil which they have done to you. Modern Orthodox Saints Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene of Lesvos., by Constantine Cavarnos., INSTITUTE FOR BYZANTINE AND MODERN STUDIES., Belmont, Massachusetts., 1990., pp. 145-155
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Forgiveness is better than revenge. St. Tikhon of Zadonsk
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Hence, in whatever state a person is, he sometimes finds himself making pure and intense prayers. For even from that first and lowest sort, which has to do with recalling the future judgment, the one who is still subject to the punishment of terror and the fear of judgment is occasionally so struck with compunction that he is filled with no less joy of spirit from the richness of his supplication than the one who, examining the kindnesses of God and going over them in the purity of his heart, dissolves into unspeakable gladness and delight. For, according to the words of the Lord, the one who realizes that more has been forgiven him begins to love more. St. John Cassian, The Conferences
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If you want cure your soul, you need four things. The first is to forgive your enemies. The second is to confess thoroughly. The third is to blame yourself. The fourth is to resolve to sin no more. If we wish to be saved, we must always blame ourselves and not attribute our wrong acts to others. And God, Who is most compassionate, will forgive us. Modern Orthodox Saints I, St. Cosmas Aitolos).Dr. Constantine Cavarnos., INSTITUTE FOR BYZANTINE AND MODERN GREEK STUDIES., Belmont, Massachusetts., pp.81-94
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No one is as good and kind as the Lord is; but He does not forgive one who does not repent. St. Mark the Ascetic
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Sincere repentance is a gift of God such that, although we may not have committed any severe fall into sin or evil deed, we still see ourselves in our true light, see how weak we are, how much we sin in the mind, in our feelings, and especially in our imagination. Looking honestly at ourselves, we have nothing left to say except “Lord God have mercy on me, help me, and forgive, forgive, forgive me!” Then forgiveness will come into our souls like Pascha, and we are as it were born anew. And if the Lord should forgive, who will condemn us? Metropolitan Vitaly, Paschal Encyclical, 2001 (http://www.orthodox.net/pascha/2001-pascha-vitaly.html)
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The deeper the contrition, the better. But however deep the contrition, never admit a shadow of doubt about forgiveness. Forgiveness is already fully prepared and the record of all sins has been torn up on the Cross. Repentance and contrition alone are expected of every man, before he too can participate in the power of the redemption of the sins of the world through the Crucifixion. Lorenzo Scupoli (Unseen Warfare: Chapter 28)
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The drunkard, the fornicator, the proud – he will receive God’s mercy. But he who does not want to forgive, to excuse, to justify consciously, intentionally… …that person closes himself to eternal life before God, and even more so in the present life. He is turned away and not heard. Elder Sampson of Russia
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Thou dost not so much desire thy sins to be forgiven, as He desires to forgive thee thy sins. In proof that thou dost not so desire it, consider that thou hast no mind either to practice vigils, or to give thy money freely: but He, that He might forgive our sins, spared not His Only-Begotten and True Son, the partner of His throne St. John Chrysostom
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Thus should we weep for the forgiveness of our sins. The words of the bearer of the purple should convince us of this: ‘Going they went and wept, casting their seed; but coming they shall come with joyfulness, carrying their sheaves (Ps. 125:6);’ as well as the words of St. Isaac the Syrian: ‘Moisten your cheeks with the tears of your eyes, that the Holy Spirit may abide in you, and cleanse the filth of your malice. Move your lord with your tears, that He may help you’ (homily 68). St. Seraphim of Sarov
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…it is impossible for a man to be freed from the habit of sin before he hates it, just as it is impossible to receive forgiveness before confessing his trespasses… Monks Callistus and Ignatius (Directions to Hesychasts no. 28, Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart; Faber and Faber pg. 199)
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(And the following story illustrates very well the powerful effect of mercy and compassion)
In 1944, the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s mother took him from Siberia to Moscow. They were among those who witnessed a procession of twenty-thousand German war prisoners marching through the streets of Moscow:
The pavements swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by soldiers and police. The crowd was mostly women — Russian women with hands roughened by hard work, lips untouched by lipstick, and with thin hunched shoulders which had borne half of the burden of the war. Every one of them must have had a father or a husband, a brother or a son killed by the Germans. They gazed with hatred in the direction from which the column was to appear.
At last we saw it. The generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips folded disdainfully, their whole demeanor meant to show superiority over their plebian victors.
“‘They smell of perfume, the bastards,” someone in the crowd said with hatred. The women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back.
All at once something happened to them. They saw German soldiers, thin, unshaven, wearing dirty blood-stained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades; the soldiers walked with their heads down. The street became dead silent — the only sound was the shuffling of boots and the thumping of crutches.
Then I saw an elderly women in broken-down boots push herself forward and touch a policeman’s shoulder, saying, “Let me through.” There must have been something about her that made him step aside. She went up to the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a colored handkerchief and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it awkwardly into the pocket of a soldier, so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now from every side women were running toward the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had. The soldiers were no longer enemies. They were people. A Precocious Autobiography, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Collins, London
XII. Further Reading on Resentment and Forgiveness
We highly recommend the article written by Hieromonk Damascene, Resentment and Forgiveness which you can click on the link to access.