Forgive Everyone for Everything

My little Lenten practice... and what radical forgiveness looks like

One of the most challenging things that I practice to get better at is forgiving all people. People who have wronged or harmed me personally, but also public personalities I deeply resent for their viewpoints and actions, as well as people whose names I don’t even know and who provide the little nuisances in life all of us experience all the time.

My new part-time job at the airport provides me with ample opportunities for the latter:

• The 81-year-old coworker who said she wished “someone would finally shoot Trump.”

• The 20-something woman who asked if we had hand sanitizer and then proceeded to open a bottle, used it, put it back on the shelf, and left.

• The mom in line for the TSA security checkpoint who thought it was fine to let her rowdy 3-year-old go wild in the retail store while she scrolled through social media on her phone.

• The middle-aged woman who was told she could use the self-checkout to save time—as I was busy with another customer—and sneered to her family, “Come on, we’re leaving; she doesn’t want to wait on us.”

Oh, it’s not that I don’t get upset in the moment those things happen. But after the experience has ended, I make it a point to pray for the person’s conversion. Though I am glad for my daily Morning Offering (“I offer my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day”) that covers me for the whole day… because when things get bad, I usually don’t feel much like “offering it up.”

One of the greatest examples of “offering it up” I’ve ever heard of—and which I thought would be very fitting for the beginning of Holy Week—is the speech Takashi Nagai, a Catholic convert who lived through the US nuclear bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945, delivered to his community shortly after the tragic event.

For context, Nagasaki was at the time the largest Christian hub in Japan, and the bomb was dropped right above a Catholic cathedral. Nagai was one of the few survivors.

Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus in the hit series The Chosen, talks about it in an interview with former FOX News host Tucker Carlson. The whole one-and-a-half-hour interview is well worth watching, but the story in question starts at 1:19:48.

Here’s the excerpt of Nagai’s speech Jonathan Roumie reads in the video:

“I have heard that the atom bomb was destined for another city. Heavy clouds rendered that target impossible, and the American crew headed for the secondary target: Nagasaki. Then a mechanical problem arose, and the bomb was dropped further north than planned and burst right above the cathedral.

“It was not the American crew, I believe, who chose our suburb; God’s providence chose Urakami and carried the bomb right above our homes. Is there not a profound relation between the annihilation of Nagasaki and the end of the war? Was not Nagasaki the chosen victim, the lamb without blemish, slain as a whole-burnt offering on an altar of sacrifice, atoning for the sins of all the nations during World War II?

“Happy are those who weep. They shall be comforted. We must walk the way of reparation, but we can turn our mind’s eyes to Jesus carrying His cross up the hill of Calvary.

“The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

“Let us be thankful that Nagasaki was chosen for the whole-burnt sacrifice. Let us be thankful that through this sacrifice, peace was granted to the world and religious freedom to Japan.”

This is a level of forgiveness and spiritual insight indicative of a true Saint.

Just imagine: A bomb hits your hometown. Everyone dies, or nearly everyone. A few survivors wander through the rubble, screaming in agony as their skin melts off, as Roumie points out.

And you watch this horror… and yet, you can still find the good in what happened. You see it as God’s will—and instead of cursing His name, you thank Him for giving your town, your people, the honor of being the sacrificial lambs.

I pray that before we die, you and I might reach a level of faith like this.

God bless you!

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