From Fr. Tom,
I think it was President John F. Kennedy who said, “Always forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.” Maybe he said that to guard against any future pain from those enemies. I don’t know. Things like forgiveness, compassion, empathy are not innate to humans. In other words, humans are not born with these virtues, rather we are born with the “capacity” to develop and nurture them. They must be learned and practiced often. Sad to say, there are people who have not been taught these virtues and live their entire lives in a world that revolves around themselves. It is said these types of folks must experience a “Copernican Revolution.” The astronomer Copernicus discovered that the earth revolves around the sun, instead of the other way around. Forgiveness is critical to a person’s general happiness, but it takes a lot of effort to forgive. God is the master of forgiveness…thank God!
