All three of these aspects of forgiveness described by Lewis Smedes in yesterday’s meditation are illustrated in the life of Malachy McCourt (1931-2024), which he describes with a flair in his several books. Malachy was the brother of Pulitzer Prize winning author Frank McCourt of “Angela’s Ashes” fame.
The McCourt home in Limerick, Ireland in the 1930’s and 40’s was a chaotic one. The father was a raging drunk who hardly ever worked; and the few times he did work, never made it home with the paycheck. Any money the father did get his hands on was always spent on Guinness beer, and eventually he abandoned the family. The mother did little more than smoke cigarettes all day, and no one knows where the money came from for that. The children who survived infancy (three did not) were left to fend for themselves. That meant a childhood of poverty, hunger, delinquency, petty theft, and trouble-making. Eventually, by honest (and some dishonest) hard work, the four boys all made it to America, escaping the poverty and shame of their desperate childhood.
They were not left without scars. Malachy especially was filled with anger and rage at how he had been treated as a child, not only by his parents, but by everyone else who looked down on him because of his poverty, filth, and mischievousness. So, he followed in his father’s footsteps and became a raging drunk, an irresponsible husband and absent father, and a resentful drifter with a huge chip on his shoulder. He hated the rich for how they looked down on him in his childhood, so as a young man it did not bother him to defraud and deceive them whenever he had the chance. He hated the church for how it had humiliated his family, and was openly scornful of it (even though it was the church charities that fed and clothed the family for years). He hated the God that the church told him about, and he refused to pray even when his son was dying. He despised his parents and never had any desire to forgive them or even visit them. He fought with his brothers, his wife, his ex-wife, his kids, his employers, his friends, and anyone else he met. He went back to his childhood home in Limerick to show them how well he had done in America, and then he was mad at everyone there for not being sufficiently impressed, and worse yet, for not going all out apologizing for how they had treated him as a child. His anger fueled his desire for alcohol and alcohol fueled his anger, so, like many alcoholics, he found himself spiraling downward. The books powerfully describe the alcoholic fog he was in, his distorted reasoning, and the constant anger that poisoned every one of his relationships.
Not until he was in his mid-50’s did Malachy McCourt seek help for his alcoholism. He joined an AA group and worked through the 12-step program. Three of the twelve steps have to do with forgiveness, and McCourt knew he had to deal with his lifelong refusal to forgive anyone of anything. He learned how much of his destructive anger came from his lack of forgiveness. One by one, he had to forgive everyone who wronged him, and he had to forgive everyone he had wronged—and that made for two very long lists.
That took a while to accomplish, but as he did so, Malachy’s heart began to soften. He accepted the fact that he could not change the past; so he just had to forgive what was done to him, let it go, and move forward. He said it was quite remarkable how much more reasonable his brother Michael, and so many others, became, after he, Malachy quit drinking. He couldn’t believe the changes in everyone around him. He even wrote a letter to his father, forgiving him. The father wrote back a disappointingly brief, but adequate letter. Malachy’s mother had already died. They never did put the past behind them, their relationship was never good, and that would be a lingering sadness. But after forgiving and being forgiven by everyone he could contact, the tone of the rest of his life was amazingly different. For the first time in his life, Malachy was at peace with himself and with his family and with everyone else. He was free to enjoy life, unburdened by the past that until then had haunted him and made him miserable. His mother never apologized, his father never asked for his forgiveness, and neither did the Limerick neighbors who added to the family misery. But Malachy forgave them all and was then, finally free. What happened to him as a child was not fair, but for him to forgive everyone of everything was now the only way he could be healed.
Do you remember what Lewis Smedes said? The first person who gets the benefit of forgiveness is always the one who does the forgiving. When you forgive someone who has sinned against you, you set a prisoner free– and then you discover that the prisoner you set free is you. When you forgive, you walk hand in hand with the very God who forgives you everything for the sake of His Son, and then says to you, “Forgive each other, as you have been forgiven” (Ephesians 4:32).
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The two powerful and life-changing books by Lewis Smedes: The Art of Forgiving and Forgive and Forget.
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I knew a man whose son was murdered. The murderer was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned; but now, just a few years later, he was going to be released. The father was enraged at the light sentence, filled with hatred for the murderer, and told me he could never forgive his son’s killer. I told him I never had a son who was murdered, so there was no way I could relate to the depth of his pain; and, there was no way I was going to tell him what to do, even though I was his pastor. But I said, “Jesus does tells us to forgive, and I know you believe in Jesus. So tell Jesus what you just told me. Say a prayer and tell Jesus about how you loved your son, how you miss him, and how unfair this all is; and tell Jesus all about your hatred, bitterness, and inability to forgive. Tell him: ‘Jesus, I know what you say I should do, but I don’t want to forgive that man. I confess to you my hatred and my rage and my unforgiving spirit. If my heart is going to be changed, you will have to do it, because I cannot. Amen.'”
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C. S. Lewis in Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer: “I really must tell you a bit of good news. Last week, while at prayer, I suddenly discovered—or felt as if I did—that I had forgiven someone I have been trying to forgive for over thirty years. Trying, and praying that I might. When the thing actually happened, and so suddenly, my feeling was ‘But it’s so easy. Why didn’t you do it ages ago?’ So many things are done easily the moment you can do them at all. But until then, sheerly impossible, like learning to swim. There are months during which no efforts will keep you up; then comes the day and hour and minute after which, and ever after, it becomes almost impossible to sink.”
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Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
–Jesus
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