Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [158]
Most certainly we must forgive him, too; but here we must desire that he recognize and repent of his wrong, not merely for his own good but for the sake of our relationship itself—of the restoration of that intimate union of hearts which essentially demands the clearing up of all misunderstandings and the healing of all disharmonies. For that union of hearts is an objective good which we must guard and cultivate, and which imposes certain obligations onus.
True, here as in other cases we must not let the autonomous mechanism of the situation run away with us and must carefully refrain from repaying an injury in kind. As victims of an aggression hie et nunc, we must—under these specific conditions, too—detach ourselves from the situation of the moment and answer all gestures of irritation, all moral blows, with kindness and charity only.
Yet, here we can on no account content ourselves with an act of inward forgiveness: at the proper moment, we must in love draw our friend’s attention to his wrong and maintain our desire for his redressing it. However, we cannot do this in the right way before we have truly forgiven him, before all bitterness and irritation on our part have yielded to a purified, unselfish pain.
Our admonition should not bear, properly speaking, the note of a reproach. It should rather be in the character of a humble and amicable exposition of our grief, a gentle invitation to our friend to consider the matter in a valid perspective and to collect himself anew, taking his start from that incident on a plane of spiritual earnestness and love. Nevertheless, it remains true that the full harmony implied by the objective logos of the relationship is not reestablished before our friend has understood and admitted his wrong, until he has asked our pardon for it.
To insist on this condition is not to postpone but to uphold the value of peace. By so acting, we still keep aloof from strife. Our demand that our friend revise his conduct springs from our longing for an unsullied harmony and an enduring intimacy in our relationship with him; that is to say, for peace—perfect and undisturbed.
Ways of dealing with violations of our rights
The safeguarding of peace presents an even more difficult problem when the offense in question is not merely one against charity—an act of unkindness or discourtesy, say—but an infringement of our rights, which we cannot refrain from defending. To take a few typical cases—somebody assumes a patronizing attitude towards us and would illegitimately restrain our freedom of decision or is about to appropriate something that by rights belongs to us, or again, arrogates to himself certain claims on third parties who are really under our supervision: gives orders, for instance, which it is our exclusive right to issue, and the like. We cannot brook such things in all circumstances, let alone permanently; yet on the other hand, our insistence on our rights obviously entails the danger of dissension and conflict.
In such cases, we must begin by forming an unbiased view of the matter, so as to ascertain whether, objectively speaking, it is really we and not the supposed offender who is in the right, or whether the problem is not a complex one, with rights and wrongs in some way divided. On no account must we simply abandon ourselves to the natural automatism of our defensive reactions. Before deciding on our course, we must arrive at a detached judgment, which we should maintain as though it were not ourselves but a third party whose rights were encroached upon.
When, in confrontation with Christ, we have acquired an inward readiness to renounce the right thus challenged, should that be God’s will, when we have performed the mental act of putting ourselves in our antagonist’s place and envisaging the matter with roles reversed, as it were, and so gained the conviction that the right we attribute to ourselves is indubitably valid and not merely a putative one—then only have we created the necessary condition for taking action in defense of our claim, should further