She was a beautiful soul<\/a>, as I\u2019ve already written, but sexual abuse victims in Catholic settings have heard her name brought up to shame us far more often than we\u2019d like to recount. Even once is too much. Of course you may invoke her intercession silently, but don\u2019t say her name. She will understand. She\u2019s a saint, after all. She\u2019s not petty or delicate. Which brings me back to the comment at hand.<\/p>\nThe \u201cfriend\u201d doubled down over our objections, saying there didn\u2019t seem to be\u00a0a display of forgiveness here. He wanted to make sure Marie was forgiving and praying for her abuser for the sake of her soul.<\/p>\n
I clicked on the commentator\u2019s name, to see what kind of man would say such a thing to a woman in this kind of distress. Turns out he\u2019d been a theology major, of course. He had public posts on his wall all about forgiveness and how forgiving your attacker is necessary to \u201cavoid bitterness.\u201d<\/p>\n
I always thought that was a funny thing to say, \u201cavoid bitterness.\u201d As if anything you did could help you avoid an emotion. Bitterness isn\u2019t optional, as Naomi in the Book of Ruth found out\u2013she hadn\u2019t done anything wrong, she just suffered a horrible misfortune and felt bitter. God helped her through it. Christ certainly didn\u2019t avoid the bitterness of His passion, even though He forgave His torturers completely. Bitter is just one of those ways that life feels when you\u2019ve suffered a horrible misfortune. I have not found that forgiveness makes it go away.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve also always thought some people had an odd idea about what forgiveness and praying for enemies entailed\u2013 not only that forgiveness and praying for enemies could make an emotion go away, but that forgiveness and praying for enemies are themselves a state of mind that we can induce by practicing the correct behaviors.<\/p>\n
As if forgiveness meant not feeling horrible about a horrible thing was wrong.<\/p>\n
As if prayer was, primarily, looking up at the ceiling and thinking and saying the right things.<\/p>\n
As if anyone could tell whether you were forgiving and praying by watching how you reacted to an extremely triggering situation like finding out your abuser had done it again 70 times and having to call a hotline to report that you were sexually abused.<\/p>\n
\nForgiveness does not involve trying or pretending to feel fine about things that are not fine\u2013 particularly trying to avoid bitterness about things that are bitter. That\u2019s lying, and lying is wrong. Abuse is never fine. It\u2019s always wrong. Forgiveness is not being a pushover or claiming that what the person did was all right. That\u2019s lying. It\u2019s never all right. Forgiveness is certainly not denying that someone ought to be punished or reported to the cops (depending on what they did). Maria Goretti\u2019s attacker spent a long time in an Italian prison, after all, and that\u2019s just where violent sexual abusers belong. Forgiveness not making sure that everything you say is sweet. Human persons never lose their intrinsic dignity as persons, of course, but they can choose to become very bad persons. They can choose to act like absolute garbage, or worse things I can\u2019t say in a Patheos column\u2013 and it could very well be that the first step toward forgiveness is admitting that.<\/p>\n
Forgiveness means that, right there in your pain and bitterness which are not your fault so don\u2019t bother to try avoiding them, you find that part of you that actually is under your own control. And with that part, with your will, you will that, if it were possible, the horrible abusive person who did this inexcusable thing to you would stop being a horrible abusive person\u2013 that God would get through to them and make them something else. You can\u2019t control that person and what they did to you, so don\u2019t blame yourself. You can\u2019t control your own feelings, and trying will make it worse. You can\u2019t control your trauma or the pain you\u2019re in, at least not right at that moment in the middle of a flashback. But when you reach the point that you can make an act of will, you will that this person would realize what they were doing, repent, and become someone who wouldn\u2019t do that. And if you can\u2019t quite will that somehow, you will that you could. Willing is enough. It\u2019s the only thing under your control anyway.<\/p>\n
As for prayer, that\u2019s something else entirely. The Christian is baptized into Christ. We are the body of Christ. Our joy is Christ\u2019s joy and our suffering is the passion of Christ. If you are in Christ, then when you suffer your suffering is prayer on behalf of all and for each. You\u2019re already praying for your abuser when you suffer from the abuse they caused you. A person flashing back to horrible trauma is a person actively on the cross with Christ. A person crying out angrily to God about their trauma is a person reciting the Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani\u00a0<\/em>and a person suffering so much they can\u2019t pray in words at all is a person silently enduring with Christ. This does not look heroic or virtuous. It does not look like prayer to us on the outside. It doesn\u2019t seem like a godly thing, but neither did Christ on Calvary.<\/p>\nThere are other forms of prayer, of course, but this agony is<\/em> a prayer in itself. And if it\u2019s all you can do, it\u2019s enough.<\/p>\nChiding a fellow Christian who is in the throes of a flashback to sexual abuse because they don\u2019t seem very forgiving or prayerful puts you squarely in the role of the Pharisees who yelled at Christ to come down from the cross. You\u2019re doing the same thing.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n
Be John and Mary, suffering with Him, instead.<\/p>\n
Be the friend who is present silently, offering a hug or to sit with them or whatever they\u2019d like. Be the friend who says \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d even though it\u2019s not very useful. Be the friend who checks up on the abused person and offers to do housework or bring meals, or other thing they can\u2019t take care of right now because recovery is so painful and time-consuming.\u00a0 But don\u2019t be a Pharisee. Don\u2019t be the friend who chides.<\/p>\n
Abuse survivors are already praying and on a path to forgiveness. We don\u2019t need added shame\u2013 we\u2019ve got plenty of that as it is.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t be that kind of \u201cfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n
(image via Wikimedia Commons)\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 My friend was abused. Yes, in that way. I won\u2019t go into detail because thinking about it makes me sick, but it was horrific, and the perpetrator was not only a respected pillar of the Catholic community but also her pediatrician. She\u2019s gone public with it so you can read about it yourself. Marie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[865,728,626,501,485,738,1869,1769,1217,2146,550,651,744,729,330,733,1767,519,756,14,2039,1746,59,71],"tags":[61,6153,196,6159,135,3111,2339,3010,6156,305,1488,2331,1762],"class_list":["post-5746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abuse","category-christ","category-christian-idenitity","category-compassion","category-conscience","category-crucifixion","category-empathy","category-flashback","category-gospel","category-human-dignity","category-icon","category-interpretation-of-scripture","category-jesus","category-mary","category-mercy","category-mess","category-monster","category-mourn-with-those-mourn","category-mystery","category-prayer","category-public-face-of-catholicism","category-scandal","category-spiritual-abuse","category-suffering","tag-abuse","tag-bitterness","tag-catholic","tag-chide","tag-christ","tag-flashback","tag-forgiveness","tag-friend","tag-naomi","tag-passion","tag-pediatrician","tag-pharisee","tag-sexual-abuse"],"yoast_head":"\n
How Not to Talk About Forgiveness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\" My friend was abused. Yes, in that way. I won't go into detail because thinking about it makes me sick, but it was horrific, and the perpetrator\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2018\/08\/how-not-to-talk-about-forgiveness\/\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2018\/08\/how-not-to-talk-about-forgiveness\/2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Not to Talk About Forgiveness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\" My friend was abused. Yes, in that way. 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