But we need to have some empathy for the ones responsible too, don’t we?
Might as well wonder about the victims of the school shooting in Florida. The 19 year old shot them, had come from some tormented situation. And lost both adopted/foster parents. Sadly, in his own woundedness he cleaved to white racist sentiments.
So what do we do? Forgive? Forget the pain that is still there? Do we forget it ever happened? Do we just move on as if it is just as plain ordinary as it were before, and go on with our lives?
Jesus suffered the cruel and foul brutal beating of His body. They whipped him. He bled quite a lot. They took thorns and set them on His head. They stripped and beat him. Then two large and long beams of wood were placed on His shoulders to carry. He proceeded with them, but His human body fell, and could not keep them up. While the Roman’s called to one man passing by, to help Jesus (Simon the Cyrene.) He still had to be punished. They raised Him onto the beams of the Cross. They sank nails right down into through His hands. They continued nailing His feet. His death was for certain, but He never gave up; never gave in. Until His last dying breath.
He was then taken down from the Cross, and Buried in a tomb set aside. He was dead. There was nothing anyone could do, except Saint Mary Magdalene to take the ointments for a dead body. Apart of the burial rites and customs of the people. But, for which she did not know, discovered the tomb open, and the body missing. Although what appeared to be a boy sitting on a rock told her that Jesus had left. She still searched around for Him. And there suddenly standing was her Lord. Wherefore she paid homage at His feet, holding onto them. Then sometime a little later, He appeared to Saint Thomas the Apostle. Wherefore He touched the wounds of Christ and said, “My Lord, and my God.”
Jesus did not scorn those who abandoned Him, those who abused Him. He did not. He did even say on His last dying words on the Cross, “Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.”
Jesus was not justifying their actions. He was not forgiving them to say they are not accountable. But, His Mission was to see it that not one soul land in Hell, but saved for Heaven. That to make it possible to pave the way to Heaven. Not to deliberately send a soul down the path of satan, the devil.
His suffering was an act of defiance and mercy. He was not countering a justice, but an injustice.
When things happen to victims, the greatest injustice to them is the loss of love and mercy. Not being able to forgive, because the horrid wounds which they are left, and are still there. The great injustice is to hate someone, even wishing they were never born at all. That’s the great injustice. And Christ suffered for it. Hence why He said, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”
