Forgiveness in a Field

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It was Ash Wednesday – the day that begins Lent for many Christians – about 1972. I was a priest in Bolivia and went to a nearby village to hear confessions. The community was on the shores of Lake Titicaca. On the border between Bolivia and Peru, Titicaca is billed as the “highest navigable lake in the world.” During about half the year there are practically no clouds and the lake is extremely blue, contrasting with the snow-capped mountains in the background.

When I arrived, I found that the community had already gathered in a field fronting the village, the men in their cloth pants, heavy wool sweaters or old suit coats and felt hats, the women in their colorful layers of long skirts, blousy shirts and bowler hats. About the time I arrived, I noticed the 50 or 60 people gathered there were forming a wide circle in the field. Then I witnessed something extraordinary.

One by one, each person went to his/her knees in front of the person next to him/her and asked for forgiveness for any way they may have offended that person during the year. I was so moved I thought that there was no further need of a formal “confession.” But I knew that given the infrequency of the opportunity to receive the sacrament of Penance, the villagers would be disappointed if I didn’t provide the opportunity.

Most of them came to confession, also held in the field, with me in a folding chair and them kneeling or standing next to it. Afterwards, I asked several of them how long they had been asking forgiveness of each other in the manner I had observed. “As long as we can remember,” one person said. No one seemed to know how the practice had begun.  

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One thing is clear: the people of that village had a keen sense of the value of forgiveness – of seeking it and giving it.

Once when I was on retreat, a priest asked participants to identify the most important line in the Lord’s Prayer, or “Our Father.” No one, including me, mentioned the line, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The priest insisted that that was the definitive line in the famous prayer, recited for Jesus’ disciples after they asked him to teach them to pray. Notice that the line in the prayer about forgiveness is not only about forgiving, but about seeking forgiveness, and that’s the model not only for our relationship to God but our relationships with each other.

 

Interesting that when we believe we are offended, we tend to maximize the offense in our minds. When we believe we may have offended, however, we tend to minimize the offense. The truth is most often somewhere in between perhaps, but the “truth” in the case of forgiveness may not be so important. “Being right” is not a factor in the psychological benefits of forgiveness, nor in its spiritual benefits.

Both forgiving and seeking forgiveness require humility, and as I’ve written before, humility is not a wimpy ideal. It refers to a kind of truthfulness that understands that “winning” doesn’t always matter in the long run. What does is our own and others’ peace: the calm and sense of renewal that comes from forgiving and being forgiven.

Therapists say that forgiveness starts with forgiving ourselves. If we are burdened by unreasonable guilt (acknowledging that sometimes we feel guilt because we’re guilty), we can’t see clearly enough to forgive others nor are we sufficiently tuned in to our faith to seek forgiveness from God. And, if we believe we have to be perfect we expect others to be so, too, and they will never deserve our forgiveness.

Whenever I have the temptation to harbor resentment, I try to remember to ask myself, who is being hurt by my resentment and lack of forgiveness? Is it me or the object of my resentment? Inevitably, it’s me, because it makes peace and joy impossible. So there’s definitely a selfish reason for forgiving.

We may refer to the Bolivian village where people sought each other’s forgiveness as the “third world,” but we have a lot to learn from them.