“Father, forgive them, for they
do not know what they do.”
Luke 23:34

“Forgiveness is at the heart of nonviolence. Our strength and power of nonviolence is rooted in our ability to forgive.”

Forgiveness was on my mind tonight as I was preparing an email for friends of peace to attend Mission Week, next week, at Marquette where the theme is the ‘art and practice of forgiveness.’ I looked for and found many quotes about ‘forgiveness’ from persons like Gandhi or Martin Luther King but ended up making up my own quote, above.

Unless you forgive someone, in this case Marquette University for Teaching Killing on campus, how can you work to change the person or institution? It is hard to forgive someone or an institution when you believe in your conscience that they are committing acts of violence that hurt real people.

Administrators at Marquette never defend the institution for hosting three military departments on campus that teach values against the teaching of Christianity. They ignore the message or attack the messengers thus never giving any creditability to the charge. They keep silent and hope that instead of continuing to ‘break the silence’ we react to being ignored or attacked.

It is hard not to react but in practice of nonviolence, as in war, it is better to go on offensive and not always defending oneself to the detriment of the message. The power of nonviolence, as shown in life of Jesus or Martin Luther King Jr. is shown by their persistent message of love and truth not in their reaction to attacks.

Pope Francis said this eloquently a week or so ago when he was addressing a group of theologians: “The definitive revelation of God in Jesus Christ makes every recourse to violence in God’s name ultimately impossible. It is precisely because of [Christ’s] refusal of violence, because of his having overcome evil with good, with the blood of his Cross, that Jesus has reconciled men to God and each other.”

The cross is the ultimate symbol of nonviolence when Jesus on the cross asks for forgiveness of those who tortured and crucified him. Forgiveness is at the heart of nonviolence.

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