“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31).

This can be an extremely difficult call to heed, even for the most earnest and devout Christians.  How are we expected to care for our families, roommates, classmates, and friends properly if doing so can be painful or burdensome to us?  Sometimes anger, frustration, and miscommunication prevail over kindness and kinship.  And yet, we are called to be a people who loves anyway…

The campus minister at my high school shared the story of his friend, Father C, with me, whose experience may shed some light on the tough yet essential task of loving our neighbors.  Father C told a story of profound forgiveness in the wake of a tragedy involving two families from the parish where he grew up.  A boy and a girl were in a car together, the boy, Matt, driving recklessly with the girl, Liz, in the passenger seat.  The car crashed.  Liz died on impact, and Matt lived for two days in the hospital before also passing away.

According to Fr. C, “the parish was being torn apart.”  Liz’s funeral was packed with standing room only: Family, friends, and all the kids from their neighborhood crowded into the church to show their support and love and to grieve for Liz.  Two days later, at Matt’s funeral, the church was almost empty, “likely out of anger, confusion, and fear.”  Despite everything that had happened over the past week, Liz’s father saw a need for support and forgiveness that he could provide.  He entered the empty church, sat behind Matt’s parents, and simply said, “We have both lost children.  May I pray with you?”

What a moment of humility and grace!  This is the sort of radical, healing, faith-based forgiveness we are challenged to embrace and to live out ourselves, even when it seems like the most difficult response.  This is the kind of love we are called to embody.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Saint Paul reminds us that “we walk by faith, not by sight.”  The notion that “seeing is believing” is often a popular view.  We are naturally drawn in by the material, the tangible.  That is why faith can be challenging.  But a life of faith, a life of hope, means daring to follow Jesus without having the opportunity to touch his wounds or witness him pass through locked doors, as the first disciples did after his Resurrection (John 20:26-28).

We are urged to take a risk by trusting in the forgiveness that Jesus preached and lived out.  Forgiveness does not get more radical than this: After the Resurrection, Jesus revealed himself as the crucified Son of God to the humanity who watched him die by showing the disciples his wounds.  But even before that, he said, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19-20).  And then he took, blessed, broke, and shared bread with them.  Unconditional forgiveness.

When we have sinned, when we have broken down the relationship between us and the God who loved us into being, Jesus does not cast a resentful gaze upon us.  Instead, He continually and actively invites us into communion with Him and of Him at the table of the Eucharist.  Jesus is the ultimate friend, then, a gift of self-sacrifice who realizes that being the first to forgive even at the risk of vulnerability or embarrassment or rejection is what advances kinship and the Kingdom here on earth.  We are called to live in this example, to risk our personal comfort for the healing of relationship.

My rector recently advised me that the fruit of struggle is growth.  When we struggle in our relationships with families, roommates, classmates, and friends, being the one to begin the conversation or the action of love that brings about reconciliation and healing is being the one to act in Christ’s image.

Forgiveness is challenging and terrifying.  Forgiveness is interruptive.  Forgiveness sometimes seems utterly impossible, and yet it is the choice ultimately made in faith.  As Christians, we are called to love anyway.

Katie Arndorfer is a sophomore English and theology major with a minor in Business Economics.  She is out of flex points and accepts donations—find her in Ryan Hall or CoMo or email her at karndorf@nd.edu to contribute to the cause.