“It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession” (2843).
Some years ago when I was wrestling internally with someone who had slandered me, my spiritual director urged me to write out what I was really feeling in a letter to Jesus, without editing or censoring any of it. I did. And it felt good to get it out. Really good! Then, in a kind of whisper I sensed in my heart, I felt Jesus saying to me, “The pain you feel is the pain this person feels. This person is pouring pain out on you because others have poured pain on this person. I’m asking you to bear this pain, to accept it freely, even welcome it for this person’s sake. I’m asking you to suffer with this person and offer this pain as intercession for this person’s healing. I’m asking you to love this person with me and through me and to allow me to love this person with you and through you.”
“The pain we feel can become prayer. And the prayer we offer can become love – in fact, it is itself love”.Christopher West
So, who’s hurt you the most? Who is it that you find impossible to forgive? Write out in a letter to Jesus what you really feel, without censoring any of it. Offer your pain to the Holy Spirit and let him do what he wants with it.
Only a miracle of grace can transform the pain we feel into compassion for the people who caused us the pain, but I can attest that such miracles happen. The pain we feel can become prayer. And the prayer we offer can become love – in fact, it is itself love. Isn’t this what Christ’s death on the Cross is in its very essence: pain experienced as compassion … offered as prayer … expressed as love? When we enter into this miracle of grace and taste it, feel it, experience it, it’s no longer we who live, but Christ in us.
We should expect miracles in learning to love. They happen. Lord, teach us how to remain open to them!
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