Wednesday 1 April 2015

The Three Strongest Words


Right from the beginning, from an encounter between two individuals, to a mixture of people all over the world, we need to use only three words in order to avoid hurting each other and  avoid conflicts and fights. These great words I am talking about are sorry, love and thanks. Right! To form a sentence for each, let us say, I am sorry, I love you and Thank you. Yes, I know that it is very easy to write the words. I can feel how sweet they sound to my ears. I feel touched when they are said to me. See the smile on my face after I hear I am sorry, I love you and thank you. This is because I feel that I am loved after receiving I love you, I find it easier to lend or to give out more after receiving thank you and I am ready to forgive after hearing I am sorry. Wow! Everything is just cool with me after hearing any of these three words.

Let us turn to the other side. It is very difficult for me to say I am sorry because I do not want to feel defeated, cowardly or to be laughed at, hence the “let him or her suffer” and “sorry for what?” attitudes. I also feel it very hard to say “ok, I have forgiven you”, yet John Locke reminds us that natural law requires us to forgive our enemies and the Lord Jesus teaches us to forgive those who sin against us not only seven times but seventy times seven (Matthew 18:21-23), meaning that we should never get tired of forgiving. Hmmm! There is also another struggle to say I love you because I only feel like whispering it to my girlfriend or my boyfriend rather than people like my brothers, sisters, cousins, friends and colleagues. Yet morality teaches us that we are supposed to love anyone to the extent of sacrificing our own lives. Oh! Another complicated sentence to use is thank you. It is not easy to say it because I feel it wastes time. I also fail to appreciate others because I think that the person has fulfilled their responsibility to provide, yet I cannot even remember that by just taking a few seconds to say thank you I can drastically bring a lot of joy to the helper, encouraging the person to give more, with smiles without any regret, since God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7).

Oh dear! Do you also have the same feeling about these three strong words as I feel, especially the difficult parts? Let us try to evaluate them now. Surely, if everyone is to use these words, which just have short sentences, our communities, societies and the world in general would never experience hatred, conflict, opposition, war and so forth. So you and I can start frequent application of these words instead of waiting and blaming others.

Join me in the spirituality of Saint Francis of Assisi in praying:

O Divine Master, grant that I may
Not try to be forgiven but to forgive
Not try to be loved but to love
Not try to be appreciated but to appreciate
Therefore, grant us the grace to carry out them. Amen!


Abiriga Dominic Savio