St. Patrick and Forgiveness Sunday

‘O Holy Hierarch, equal of the Apostles, Saint Patrick, wonderworker and enlightener of Ireland: Intercede with the merciful God that He grant unto our souls forgiveness of offences.’

– Apolytikion of Patrick, Enlightener of Ireland

On this day, Forgiveness Sunday, we commemorate St. Patrick, who forgave his captors and returned to live among them despite the hostility he faces as a foreigner and former slave.

“For St. Silouan, the love of enemies supposes that one forgives them their offenses and prays for them. It is in compassion that St. Silouan sees one of the principal dimensions of the love of enemies. For the Starets, compassion for enemies is linked to the compassion one must have for all creatures without exception: “One must feel compassion for every person, every creature and all of God’s creation.”

“The Spirit of God teaches us to love all that exists, and the soul feels compassion for each being, and also loves enemies and pities demons, because in their fall they were detached from the good.” Compassion makes no exceptions.

The first step to loving your enemies, says St. John Chrysostom, is not to be the first to cause harm.

The second step is not to take revenge in the measure one has suffered.

While the two first degrees do not seem to concern the love of enemies, they are its preconditions. The tendency to attack one’s enemies or to take revenge is instinctive and spontaneous, and receives its approbation from the Old Testament law of retaliation when taken in its most literal meaning.

The third step is not to take revenge at all, but to leave that to God, as the Apostle Paul said: “Recompense to no man evil for evil” (Rm 12:17); “Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Rm 12:19). St. Isaac the Syrian gives the same advice: “Let yourself be persecuted, but do not persecute. Let yourself be crucified, but do not crucify. Let yourself be insulted, but do not insult.”

. . . . The nineteenth step is to feel pity and compassion for them. This attitude is in answer to Christ’s counsel, given in the context of His teaching on the love of enemies: “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful” (Lk 6:36). This is how St. Isaac the Syrian describes him who has real compassion for all beings in creation, and so also for his enemies: “When he thinks of them, and when he sees them, tears run from his eyes. So strong and so violent is his compassion, and so great is his constancy that it wrings his heart and he can’t bear to hear or to see the least harm or the slightest sadness in creation.”

. . . . The twenty-third step is to wish them and do them good. “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Lk 6:31), When a man who was being ill-treated asked him how to act, St. John of Gaza had only one answer: “Do good to him.” St. Isaac advises: “Show the greatness of your compassion by rendering good to those who were unjust to you”.”

– Extracts from the book of Jean-Claude Larchet, ‘Saint Silouane de l’Athos’.