So I just completed a letter to a friend. Now we often shoot off emails or post on a social media site a quick note or message and we think nothing of it.
But this letter is different.
It's actually going through the mail. For I cannot write to my friend via social media or email. Anyone who knows me personally will agree that I detest talking on the phone and I am a procrastinator when it comes to actually having to mail anything via USPS!
However writing to my friend Robert is different. For in writing to Robert I must shun the human weakness to judge him. I must strip away my human weakness to push him aside. He is a "reject" according to secular standards. Now granted, he has made choices that led him down the path of life to be "rejected". But as stated by Pope Francis, "Who am I to judge?"
Are we not all sinners? Do we reject God's love when we do things that go against His very desire for us? Yet guess who is always waiting for us, waiting for us to seek His forgiveness, His warm embrace?
The man pictured with (soon-to-be Saint) Blessed John Paul II is Mehmet Ali Agca. He is the man who shot (then) Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981. The Pope visited him in December 1981 where the two spoke privately.
We are called to forgive our enemies. We are called to love our neighbor. We are called to love one another as Christ has loved us. Yes, some days it may seem impossible. But if Blessed John Paul II could forgive the man that tried to kill him, who am I to judge those around me for the transgressions and sins in their lives when I myself am a sinner as well?
So I will mail my letter to Robert in the morning.
In a few days it will be received by a young man waiting for his life to end...on death row.
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