T. 27. II. 1 – 3. Jesus: “Is healing frightening? To many, yes! For accusation of harm is a convenient bar to love, and damaged bodies are accusers. They stand firmly in the way of trust and peace, proclaiming that the frail can have no trust and that the damaged have no grounds for peace.
Who has been truly injured by his brother, and could love and trust him still? The brother, it seems, has attacked and will attack again. ‘Protect your brother not,’ they say, because your damaged body shows that you are frail and must be protected from him. To forgive may be an act of charity on your part, but is surely not his due! He may be pitied for his guilt, but not exonerated. And if you ‘forgive’ him while you still believe ‘his transgressions’ real, you but add to all the guilt that, in your perception, he has really earned.
The unhealed simply cannot pardon! For in their misery, they are the witnesses that pardon is unfair. By their own choice, they retain the consequences of the guilt they overlook. No one can forgive a sin that he believes is real. And what has consequences to him must be real, because what it has done is plainly there to see.
The unhealed simply cannot pardon! For in their misery, they are the witnesses that pardon is unfair. By their own choice, they retain the consequences of the guilt they overlook. No one can forgive a sin that he believes is real. And what has consequences to him must be real, because what it has done is plainly there to see.
Forgiveness is not pity, which but seeks to pardon what it thinks to be the truth. Good cannot be returned for evil, for true forgiveness does not first establish sin and then forgive it. Who in honesty can say and mean, ‘My brother, you have injured me, and yet, because I am the better of the two, I pardon you my hurt.’
His pardon and your hurt cannot exist together! One denies the other and must make it false! To witness sin and then to say ‘I forgive you,’ is a paradox that reason cannot see. For reason would maintain that what was done to you deserves no pardon. And by giving it, you may grant your brother mercy, but retain the ‘proof’ that he is not really innocent!
The sick remain accusers. They cannot forgive their brothers and themselves as well. For no one in whom true forgiveness rests can suffer anything at all! He holds not the proof of sin before his brother’s eyes. And thus he must have overlooked it and removed it from his own!
Forgiveness cannot be for one and not the other. Who truly forgives is healed. And in his healing lies the proof that he has wholly pardoned, and retains no trace of condemnation that he still would hold against himself or any living thing.”