Forgiveness at the Foot of the Altar

 

Forgiveness at the Foot of the Altar

The blood of children spilled before the altar. There are no words that can soften such a horror, no easy answers for the shock that gripped me when I first heard about the Michigan Catholic School Mass shooting. The church, meant to be a sanctuary of peace, of innocence, of Eucharistic presence, became a place of terror. Nothing feels more heinous than violence desecrating the very space where Christ offers His body for the life of the world. My first thoughts spiraled into grief and anger. How could this be? How could God allow this? And beneath that anguish came the sharper edge: How could I ever forgive the one who did it?

It was precisely in that spiral that God interrupted me. The thought came unbidden: I love him too. It startled me. Not the victims. Of course God loves them, of course His heart breaks with theirs. But the shooter? The one whose hands shed innocent blood? To hear God’s voice remind me that He loved this young man shook me. And so began a battle in my own heart: could I allow myself to see him not only as a murderer, but also as a lost son, still beloved by the Father? Could I separate the sick, sinful actions from the soul Christ died for?

Scripture does not make this easy, but it makes it unavoidable. The Lord tells Moses, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy” (Exodus 33:19). Jesus echoes this radical freedom in the Sermon on the Mount: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). And the Catechism teaches us plainly: “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” (CCC 2843). Forgiveness, then, is not excusing evil. It is obedience: Obedience to a God who dares to pour mercy even where we would rather withhold it.

So I found myself before the Blessed Sacrament, wrestling, rosary in hand. Anger still rose in my chest, but I chose to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet for him. For his soul, for his family, for the unfathomable wounds behind such a crime. Not because I felt like it, but because God asked me to. Each bead became an act of surrender: For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. Forgiveness, I am learning, is not sentiment but obedience. It is trusting that God’s justice and God’s mercy are not in competition but in union. And in that act of prayer, trembling though it was, I realized: even here, even for him, Christ’s mercy is big enough.