I often ask pilgrims walking toward the Shrine of Our Lady in Luján, at the “Carpa de María”:

What is more difficult—walking 400 km to a distant Marian shrine, or forgiving the unforgivable?

The answers never fail. Never.

More difficult—if not impossible—is to forgive the unforgivable.

How hard it is to re-educate our nature!

How hard self-education is—to set a goal for growth and actually follow through with it.

How hard it is to forgive!

I’ve discovered that working in two distinct areas, forgiveness can gradually become a way of life.

The human side

The more we are able to understand our own limitations and weakness, the easier it becomes to understand the limitations and weakness of others.

The real challenge lies in shedding our own perspective and entering the heart and mind of the other. If we judge others by the good we do ourselves, we will never make progress. We must understand the other from their own nature, their history, their richness and their flaws. That’s how we’ll begin to comprehend (not necessarily justify) their failures and the actions that have hurt us.

If we lived this out, our lives would be so much happier.

It requires daily effort. The more we practice it, the easier it becomes to empathize with those we feel have wronged us.

The faith side

In theory, it’s easy: If Jesus forgave us everything, how could we not forgive?

But the equation is not that simple.

We always need a natural, human support to strengthen our faith. The two go hand in hand: nature and grace, spirituality and humanity, God and community—they must always be organically intertwined.

When the mind wants to forgive, but the heart doesn’t follow

It’s happened to me. I struggled to forgive someone from the heart who had deeply hurt me, even though my mind and will had already chosen forgiveness.

Even though this disconnect between heart and will troubled me, my conscience was at peace, because my will had made the decision. But that heart-level forgiveness was beyond my control—I needed divine help.

This went on for quite a while.

Then, during a Holy Week retreat, God granted me the grace I had been asking for, and my heart finally forgave. I was free.

I forgive but I don’t forget?

We’ve heard it a thousand times: I forgive, but I don’t forget.

But that’s not what Jesus shows us on Good Friday.

When God forgives, He forgets—and that should be the Christian’s goal.

Radical love, while respecting our human processes.

If we truly strive to understand others in their own reality, and open our hearts to Jesus—who is hanging on the Cross to save us—then forgiving and forgetting is not impossible. And time helps.

Going to meet the other

God calls us to take the first step toward others—even when we feel we’re the ones who have been hurt.

We all have that moment when God whispers: Call her. Go visit him. Talk to them. Do something. Offer a coffee. Ask if they’re cold.

Feeling innocent doesn’t exempt us from making the effort.

Someone gave far more for you and for me.

Ringing the doorbell

There was someone who was very angry with me. I held no resentment in my heart, but the message came: Don’t even think of coming to my house.

Later, I approached his home and rang the doorbell. They opened the door, we greeted each other, talked a bit… and everything was resolved, as if nothing had happened.

When we make that call, or ring that bell, we know we might “fail.” I knew that very well.

So what’s the worst that can happen? They don’t open? They don’t answer?

So what? It’s just a bruised ego—nothing more.

If we’re secure in ourselves, nothing truly bad happens.

And so, even an apparent failure becomes a victory—because we tried.

There’s no way to describe the inner freedom that forgiveness brings.

Lord, help me forgive and forget

Luke tells us that Jesus, in agony in the Mount of Olives, sweating blood before His Passion began, was visited by an angel from heaven to strengthen Him.

It is said (not Luke) that a man once spent years wondering what the angel might have said to Jesus to give Him the strength to embrace such suffering and death on the cross. The question consumed him.

He prayed constantly, longing to understand what words could possibly have empowered Jesus to get up and walk toward Calvary.

When the man died and arrived in heaven, the first thing he did was ask Peter if he knew where to find the angel who had strengthened Jesus.

Peter gave him directions, and the man crossed heavenly rivers, climbed hills, passed through valleys, until he came upon a group of angels. Asking around, he finally found the angel of Gethsemane.

He begged him:

“Please, tell me, I beg you—what did you say to Jesus, to give Him the strength to go to the cross?”

And the angel replied:

 “I said to Him your name.”

Lord, how overwhelming is Your love for me!

Lord, give me the strength to love myself in my brokenness, for You love me even much more.

Lord, give me the strength to love those I do not yet love.

Give me the strength to forgive… and to forget.