LETTING GO
September
23, 2025
LETTING GO
Hello! How is each and every one? I have been following the news about Charlie Kirk and last night we watched the memorial service and listened to Erica’s speech among other things on forgiveness, it was not easy for her to say it. She was praying before she could say those words I forgive him (the assassin). Because it the first words of Jesus on the Cross, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” I am presently reading as my spiritual reading book “The Cries of Jesus From the Cross” by Fulton J. Sheen.
The first chapter of the book talks precisely
about those first words of Jesus from the Cross and ends with the following
prayer. For this post, I just would want
to share the prayer that actually summarizes the consideration on the difference
between wisdom and ignorance. I hope to
find an opportunity to share the book with you.
Dear Jesus! I do not want to
know the wisdom of the world; I do not want to know on whose anvil snowflakes
are hammered or the hiding place of darkness or from whose womb came the ice,
or why the gold falls to the earth earthly, and fire climbs to the heavens
heavenly; I do not want to know literature and science, or the four-dimensional
universe in which we live; I do not want to know the length of the universe in
terms of light-years; I do not want to know the breadth of the earth as it
dances about the chariot of the sun; I do not want to know the heights of the
stars, chaste candles of the night; I do not want to know the depths of the sea
or the secrets of its watery palace. I want to be ignorant of all these things.
I want only to know the length, the breadth, the height, and the depth of Thy
redeeming love on the Cross, sweet Savior of men. I want to be ignorant of
everything in the world — everything but You, dear Jesus. And then, by the
strangest of strange paradoxes, I shall be wise!
— The Seven Last
Words
Following now is the chapter on the 6th superhabit of forgiveness ((From SUPERHABITS, The Universal System for a Successful Life by Andrew V. Abela, PH.D., Dean, Busch School of Business, The Catholic University of America, 2024).
FORGIVENESS
Forgiving
others is freeing. Novelist Matthew Dicks writes, “When you can find a way
forgive the negative person who plagues your thoughts and feelings, you can
find true freedom.” Years after the
“Malice at the Palace” incident, Ron Artest decided to reach out to John Artest
decided to reach out to John Green in a gesture of forgiveness. Green was the
fan who threw a cup of beer at Artest and escalated the malice to its epic
proportions. They have since become good
friends.
Forgiveness
is a companion superhabit of Gentlefirmness.
It helps us manage our desire for things to be the way we think they
should be, the desire for things to be right.
Where Gentlefirmness is the habit of directing your anger toward making
things right, Forgiveness is the habit of moderating your response – whether it
be hatred, retaliation, or punishment – toward what caused the anger in the
first place. Gentlefirmness is the
superhabit you call on in the moment, when you perceive that things aren’t
right; Forgiveness is the superhabit you employ afterward, to deal with the
fallout. You can’t go back and change
what happened, but you can help heal the consequences.
Forgiveness
is truly a superpower. It is associated
with both psychological and physical benefits.
Studies show that acting with Forgiveness is associated with lower
levels of anxiety, depression, and stress, and also improved cholesterol
levels, sleep, and blood pressure. Forgiveness therapy is even being used to
help treat cancer.
Studies
suggest that individuals can learn to be more forgiving if they practice
empathy, self-reflection, and letting go of expectations. Studies on forgiveness therapy found that
uncovering one’s negative feelings, deciding to forgive, working toward
understanding the offending person, and discovering empathy and compassion for
him or her helped alleviate symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder,
anxiety, and depression. Two good
resources here are Dr. Fred Luskin’s book Forgive
for Good and Dr. Everett Worthington’s free workbook The Path to Forgiveness.
Scholars
at the Harvard Human Flourishing Program consider forgiveness to be so
important that it ought to be treated as a public health issue. One survey concluded that almost two-thirds
of Americans felt like they need more forgiveness in their lives. Forgiveness also has an important role to
play in organizations. Research shows,
for example, that employees forgiving each other leads to greater job
satisfaction, higher work engagement, and lower burnout.
Forgiveness is also necessary for effective leadership.
We
saw in the introduction superhabit is really another word for virtue. Does this mean that superhabits are just
about morality? Virtues are indeed about
morality, but more broadly, they are about human excellence. Moral excellence, yes, but also practical
excellence more generally. It is
important to distinguish virtues from values.
Values are “talking the talk.”
Virtues are “walking the walk.”
There is no doubt that the captain and crew of the Greenville valued safety and human life. But that did not save the lives of those
teachers and school children. What was
needed was practical excellence. In a
sense, virtues are values turned into habits.
It’s one thing to value initiative among your crew, or staff. It’s another thing entirely to be in the
habit of forgiving them when necessary, so that they won’t shy away from
showing initiative.
A
different approach is the following: “In
the beginning, people kept asking my permission to do things. Eventually, I told the crew, ‘It’s your
ship. You’re responsible for it. Make a decision and see what happens.’”
Isn’t
that risky? What if his crew made
serious mistakes?
“I
chose my line in the sand. Whenever the consequences of a decision had the potential
to kill or injure someone, waste tax-payers’ money, or damage the ship, I had
to be consulted. Short of those
contingencies, the crew was authorized to make their own decisions. Even if the decisions were wrong, I would
stand by them. Hopefully they would
learn from their mistakes.”
Michael
Abrashoff, this U.S. Navy captain of the five-hundred-foot destroyer USS Benfold, was giving a clear message
of forgiveness: try things, and if
something doesn’t work, you won’t get in trouble. He concluded that “the more responsibility
they were given, the more they learned….
The command-and-control approach is far from the most efficient way to
tap people’s intelligence and skills. To
the contrary, I found that the more control I gave up, the more command I got.”
Leaders
who are forgiving get more and better effort out of their people. Like the other superhabits, forgiveness is good
for our health and happiness, and it helps our organizations flourish.
We
have looked at superhabits for managing our desires to do things, to know
things, and to have things be the way we think they ought to be. Channeling
those desires gives us the energy to accomplish what we want and need to
accomplish, without having to draw down our willpower constantly.
But
what if I have no desire at all to do
what I need to do? What if I really don’t feel like doing it? Is there a superhabit for that?
“First things
first”.
What is before us now is this superhabit of forgiveness. It is said that “to err is
human; to forgive is divine”. Those words explain why it is not easy to
forgive. We need divine grace, help from
God to be able to do so. According to St.
Josemaria, author of A Man Who Knew How to
Forgive, “I didn’t need to learn to forgive, because God
has taught me how to love”. True! Love is the key to heal
hurts and many other ills. Allow me, please
to repeat the last sentences of the prayer above ‘I want only to know the
length, the breadth, the height, and the depth of Thy redeeming love on the
Cross, sweet Savior of men. I want to be ignorant of everything in the world —
everything but You, dear Jesus. And then, by the strangest of strange
paradoxes, I shall be wise!’
“Seek first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you” (Mt 6:33). ‘Ang pagmamahal sa Panginoon ay simula ng
karunungan’ (song).
Let us bring these thoughts of wisdom on love and forgiveness into our conversation with God in those quiet moments of our prayer every day this week and present to Him our hurts, wounds, ills. Let’s ask Him to help us overcome them with His saving grace. We need God. Without Him we can do nothing.
Let us pray for all sinners that includes you and me so that we may be acknowledge our sins and be sorry for each one of them and then amend our ways; Let us pray for the ignorant that they may seek the truth and find it; for the atheists, communists, marxists, socialists who do not believe in God so that they may be given the gift of faith to know their identity and history as to where they came from and come to know God, to love Him, to serve Him, to adore Him and to worship Him; let us pray for the evildoers so that the good seed in each one’s heart maybe enkindled, grow and increase to drown the evil tendencies in their hearts. Jesus died on the Cross out of love for each one of us so that we may be saved and enjoy His everlasting life in Heaven. Greater love than His no one has but God.
See you in the next post, “May tomorrow be a perfect day; may you find love and laughter along the way; may God keep you in his tender care; ‘til He brings us together again.”
Affectionately,
Guadalupinky
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