Forgiveness: A Requirement of the Christian Life

Lent begins this week. Let’s reflect on the theme of forgiveness with two stories that affected me lately.

In 1995, a 59-year-old Ursuline Sister of Cleveland, Ohio was raped and murdered in the woods behind her Motherhouse property. Sister Joanne Marie Marsha had been walking in the woods behind her Motherhouse. She was out enjoying nature, something she loved, when her assailant, who lived in the neighborhood, attacked her. At his trial, the Ursuline Sisters argued against the death penalty and got other Ursuline communities all over the country to join in the effort clogging emails, voicemails and fax machines of judicial officials pleading for life in prison, not the death penalty for the man convicted of the rape and murder of Sister Joanne Marie. Sister Maureen McCarthy, president of the Ursuline community at the time, addressed the media after more than 13 hours of interviews saying, “she didn’t believe in the death penalty because it is another form of violence.” Following this tragedy, the Ursuline Sisters adopted a corporate stance against the death penalty in 1997.

The sisters testified at the trial, but neither they nor anyone else realized the additional grief they were handling at the same time. Fifteen years prior, another beloved Ursuline was raped and murdered in El Salvador, along with three other women missionaries. The tragedy went through global news outlets like electricity and became a national focus in American politics about El Salvador, U.S. relations. The Ursuline Sisters were, again, devastated. Despite 15 years of working to seek justice in the El Salvador crime, they saw that they were holding deep shock and grief the second crime was about to open.

This past September, however, a letter arrived at the desk of Sister Laura Bregar, the current president of the Ursulines from the man serving his sentence for the murder of Sister Joanne Marie. She read his letter and the leadership’s response offering forgiveness in the name of the community to him at a December community meeting. In his letter, he wrote “I write to ask forgiveness for what I did to Sister Joanne Marie Masha… I was a scared kid who didn’t ask for help. I am truly sorry that I killed her. “Sisters who were present describe a moment of shock and deep personal pain eventually turning into the peace of forgiveness. “Not a sound was heard,” said Sister Susan Durkin. “You could hear a pin drop…it was powerful how it affected us as a group.

Following this meeting, they realized that forgiveness doesn’t end there and that the Spirit was nudging them again to use this story of forgiveness to the benefit of others; the next step was to reinvigorate their opposition to the death penalty through the Catholic Mobilizing Network and Ohioans to Stop Executions nationally and in Ohio. Turning their long-held grief from two murders of their own sisters into something positive inspired the sisters to say, “This is the moment. You’ve got to push again.” It’s the only way you truly forgive and truly heal.

The second story concerns another community of sisters. They make up a congregation in Gatesville, Texas and are contemplative sisters given mostly to prayer throughout their day and work that provides the support they live on. The Sisters of Mary Morning Star were introduced to women on death row by a Catholic deacon, Ronnie Lastovica who has ministered to the inmates since 2014. The sisters never dreamed they would be ministering on death row but four of them started in 2021 and have been at it ever since. They encounter women who are charged with the most heinous crimes imaginable, but the sisters are not officially told what those crimes are unless the prisoners choose to tell them. One prisoner recalled that first visit when the nuns came into the common room where the women awaited them. “Then something supernatural happened. It was just instant. There wasn’t a moment of discomfort or of…unease. We opened our arms and they opened their arms, and we embraced one another.” Sister Lydia Marie remarked, “We came here so afraid thinking we were going to minister to these women…oh, my goodness, they ministered to us.” 

Eventually, the nuns and women shared their personal stories and the inmates were affirmed that the nuns, too, had personal disappointments and major setbacks in life and they still deal with shortcomings and adjustments. “You and I are very much alike,” one nun told a prisoner. An inmate said, “I get peace from them; I’m a new creation because of them.” When the time grew shorter with one of the women whose execution date was nearing, she expressed a desire to become an Oblate of the sisters’ order. One sister observed, “We’re connected with each other because we’re sinners; we can (accept) the human person…and receive them with dignity and respect, regardless of what crime they have committed.” Almost every inmate requested to become an Oblate. The sisters are not present to decide the guilt or innocence of any prisoner; they walk the arduous journey of trials and retrials, of pain and anger, of despair and faith. Without tools which were forbidden they fashioned a garden “using rocks, plastic peanut butter jars, and broken tree limbs.” Eventually, they were allowed two rototillers and a field cultivator.  One prisoner wrote, the “(Lord) planted seeds that broke open and took root in my heart.” Some of these women may very well be innocent but are caught up in the system that fails poor women, notably women of color. The nuns and the prisoners understand the power of forgiving oneself even as they wait to see if society can forgive them.

Reflection

Forgiveness is two-fold. The one who forgives and the one who asks for forgiveness. Forgiving oneself, while solitary and without seeming reprieve, is always a first step. Let us reflect on forgiveness this first week and if you need to include it in your spiritual life, resolve to do so in the holy days ahead.

I highly encourage you to read the article, “Nearly 30 years after he raped and murdered a nun, an Ohio man asked for forgiveness,” by Dan Stockman, The National Catholic Reporter, February 22, 2025. 

The second story is also a must read. “The Nuns Trying to Save the Women on Texas’s Death Row,” by Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, February 17-24, 2025.