Hate - Why it is No Good For You

This is a true story. My mother was a simple soul. She did have a habit of analyzing people a bit too much and spent a lot of time looking for happiness to ambush her from the outside. I don't think that she ever learned  that happiness radiates from the inside of a person, that it is a seed that needs careful nurturing and by taking care of it a life takes on a glow that nothing from the outside of it will have permanent effect. She was love by myself and my three younger siblings and as we grew she taught us many lessons in life. For example, through the dark days of fourth grade where it seemed I was always in trouble with the teacher, she told me to no matter what, hold my head high and be proud of who I was. I just want to give you an idea of the beauty that was inside of the soul of my mother Violet.  

She worked as an assistant in a doctor's office and part of her compensation package was medical care. One day she showed a growth that was on her shoulder to the doctor she worked with. The doctor took a quick look and prescribed an anointment. My mother carefully followed the doctors instructions and after about six months there was no improvement. She went to visit the doctor whom she worked for previously who was in retirement and he took one look at the growth and diagnosed it as cancer. She went to another doctor who removed the growth and believed he had gotten it all. But several months later at a check up it was discovered that the cancer had metastasized to her lungs and that her condition was terminal. 

The chemo would prolong her life and she was referred to a well known surgeon in the Chicago area and he said she possibly could get more time if she would allow him to operate. Mom scheduled the operation. It was scheduled for early afternoon and it was with shock that when we arrived at the hospital we found Mom on a gurney being taken to surgery! We thought we would have had some precious time to talk with her and comfort her but a cancelled surgery meant that they could take her early.  We did get to make her feel loved as the attendant pushed her into the elevator and we began the waiting game. The surgeon eventually came into the waiting room a smile on his face saying that everything had gone good and he removed as much of the growth as he could and he estimated from what he could see that she might have a year, maybe a little more, to live.  We went into see her and she was on a respirator, but alert and able to communicate by writing on a board that the nurses provided her with.  I lived a fair distance from the hospital so the second day post-op I took the day off from visiting and went to work. The next day something had changed. Mom was no longer able to respond. If we put the pen into her hand she would try to write but the pen would slip from her hand. As the day went on she became less and less responsive until at 7:11 P.M. she passed away.

The next few days we did the needful and arranged a funeral mass at St. Joseph and St. Anne Church and laid our mother to rest.  At the wake I was introduced to her employer, the doctor that cared so little that she allowed what could have been a fixable issue to become a terminal one.  I looked at her and thought that, "This bitch killed my mother."  My heart filled with hate but I softly thanked the woman for coming to the wake. 

After all of the excitement of the wake, funeral, and the funeral luncheon there was nothing but time left. Time to mourn, time to remember the sharing of our lives with our mother. For me there was also time to hate. Now I have to say I would not in any way, shape, or manner physically hurt anyone. But mentally I killed that vile woman doctor many times. I slipped into depression but I did not recognize it for what it was. My symptoms included lethargy, lack of interest in things around me. I would read the same books over and over again and for six months I never once reconciled my checking account. 

I was working in a travel agency that was about fifteen miles from my home. I took a route through a beautiful tony suburb called Lake Forest. For months I hardly noticed the beauty of the trees. At one point I passed a Catholic Church. It was my habit to make the sign of the cross as I passed the church for brick and mortar could not separate me from the Love Incarnate in the form of Bread that was in the tabernacle. Then one day as I passed that Church and once again followed what in my mind had become an empty ritual, it came to me that as a Christian man,I could not hate, it was foreign to me. In that moment of what I believe was Christ sent inspiration I forgave that doctor, I granted her a full and complete pardon. At that moment a great weight was lifted off of my shoulders. My soul began to feel joyful again. Surely I still missed my mother, but I knew that she was with God. The other benefit I could claim from this encounter was that from that moment on I could not hate anyone else. I had forgiven my mother's killer, what could you do to me that would be worse that killing her?  

There have been disappointments in life, where friends have failed me in major ways but I could not hold anger or resentment to them. I just had to forgive! 

So the lesson I learned, taught to me by the hand of God through His Son is that hate for any reason is self defeating. It closed the universe around you. You develop myopia of the soul and risk wasting vast amounts of time seeking revenge.  This is all at great cost to your body and your soul. 

Is there anyone in your life that you need to forgive?  I don't mean you have to eat lunch with them and invite them to join you on vacation! No, I mean just the simple act of granting them mercy and absolving them from the real debt that they owe you. You don't have to tell them if you don't want to. If they are a close relative, you may approach them in time and begin to reconstruct your relationship but that is not necessary to forgive the hurt that was done to you. I can give you an absolute guaranty that if you do this in your heart you will awaken parts of your soul that go dormant when you carry hate in your heart.  Forgive and forget? I don't think that it is possible to forget an evil that is done to you. It is part of our survival skill set. But forgiving that person who hurt you the most will set you free to live and love in the paradise that God has given us. 

Remember well the prayer we say daily, the Lord's Prayer, the prayer given to us by Jesus Himself. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us..." Do you think he was kidding?  God is ready to forgive us every day we sin against Him. He will forgive us in the same measure that we have forgiven others. 

Thank you Pope Francis for declaring this the year of mercy. May we learn to be merciful to each other.