A listener named Chris asks Father Dave about forgiveness and death. Chris asks, “How do we ask for forgiveness from those who have passed away?”
Father Dave empathizes with Chris and begins, “It’s something that many of us have experienced — that somebody dies and we feel that we have wronged them or even just left it on a bad note. Sometimes you don’t know when the end is near, or you can’t fly in to be at the hospital bed and say those last [words] of healing or reconciliation.”
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Father Dave encourages us to pray for loved ones in purgatory and says, “Once someone has gone through that purification process that we call purgatory and they’re in heaven with God, they are basking in complete mercy, love, and holiness; they’re not withholding their forgiveness.”
He notes, “The question might more accurately be, how do we forgive ourselves for ways in which we’ve harmed people that have died? Theologically, it’s less about them forgiving us, and more about how do we emotionally deal with the guilt of that? How do we let that go and trust in the mercy of God?”
“Some of it is just human, mental, and emotional. We have to let go of the guilt; it’s not our fault that the person died, and they’re not in any worse of a place. They’re not spending any more time in purgatory because we didn’t ask for their forgiveness,” Father Dave continues. “Therefore, it comes back to [asking] ‘Okay, how does this make me a different person?’”
He challenges Chris to examine his other relationships with those still on Earth and not be afraid to have conversations of forgiveness with loved ones now. Father Dave relates this to not being present at his father’s death as a teenager, even though it was not in his control. Fifty years later, when Father Dave’s mother was nearing her death, he made a point to be with her as much as possible.
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“This is not a perfect analogy, but what I’m saying is many things like this happen in our lives where we think, ‘I regret that,’ or ‘I wish that was better,’” he says. “Rather than kicking ourselves about it, because we can’t change it, what I can do is change my present and my future. With what [Chris is] talking about, rather than, ‘How do I ask forgiveness from someone who’s passed away?’ My pastoral question would be, ‘Who else do you need to do that with that’s still alive?’”
Father Dave says, “That feeling of guilt is an invitation to make right some other relationships, or some other brokenness. Even just asking God for forgiveness for some sin or bad habit that we keep doing. Let’s use that moment of grief, guilt, or sadness and transform it, just like Christ does to all of our sin, pain and suffering. Christ transforms it; we can play a part in that too. We can transform that into something that is resurrection.”