(The Nationalist, December 1999)
The following note – written by an unknown person – was found on the body of a dead child in Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany at the end of the Second World War:
‘Peace to all those of evil will. Let there be an end to demands for punishment and retribution. Crimes have surpassed all measure and can no longer be grasped by human understanding. There are too many martyrs. So, do not weigh their sufferings on the scales of justice, Lord, nor lay those sufferings to the torturer’s charge to exact a terrible reckoning from them. Pay them back in a different way. Put down in favour of the executioners, the informers, the traitors and all those of evil will, the courage, the spiritual strength of others, their humility, their lofty dignity, their constant inner striving and their invincible hope, the smile, the stench, the tears, their love, their ravaged broken hearts that remained constant and faithful in the face of death itself, yes, even at the moment of utmost weakness. Let all this, Lord, be laid before you for the forgiveness of sin, a ransom for the triumph of righteousness. Let the good, not the evil, be taken into account, and may we remain in our enemies’ memory, not as their victims, not as their nightmare, not as a haunting ghost, but as helpers in their striving to wipe out the fury of their criminal passion. There is nothing more that we want of them’.
May the Living Child of Bethlehem bring us forgiveness and the grace to forgive at Christmas and in the new millennium.