Father! Forgive Them...
“Father! Forgive them, for they do not know what
they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
According to the
Gospel of Luke, in the place called the Skull, the soldiers crucified Jesus
between the two criminals. On the cross, Jesus said, “Father! Forgive them, for
they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
In the prayer “Our
Father,” Jesus taught his disciples to practice the virtue of forgiveness,
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Matt
6:12). When Peter asked how often he
should forgive those who offended him, Jesus suggested seventy times seven,
meaning, unlimited forgiveness to the wrong acts committed against an
individual (Matt 18:21-22). Above all, Jesus not only taught forgiveness but
also acted on it. In his last hour and on the cross, Jesus uttered the words of
forgiveness to those who had brought him to the cross.
I was born in Saigon, the capital of South
Vietnam. In April 1975, Saigon fell into the hands of the Vietcong. This event
is known as the Fall of Saigon, and is dramatized by a famous musical
performance, “Miss Saigon.” The Fall of Saigon dramatically took place when I,
thirteen years old, saw one of the first Vietcong tanks rolling along the main
road of the city around 11:15am. That fateful Wednesday morning of a fateful
day has become an indelible memory for many Vietnamese people. All of a sudden,
I recall, the cerulean blue sky of a summer morning turned dark with many gray
clouds. The fateful day continued its fateful course when the last US
helicopter lifted off from the top of the US Ambassador's building. The
helicopter gradually disappeared over the horizon. Saigon was breathing her
last breath with the radio broadcast in which the leader of South Vietnam was
announcing the surrender of the South Vietnamese government. Bullets seemed to
be coming from everywhere. People were running on the road. Shouting! Crying!
Chaos! Finally the first Vietcong tank entered the huge courtyard of the palace
of the President. That was it. Game over! The iron curtain, as expected,
dropped down to close the doors of Vietnam to the outside world. No one got
out, no one got in. No news does not always mean good news, for after the Fall
of Saigon, the Western countries received almost no news from Vietnam. Only
when the first waves of those who escaped from Vietnam searching for freedom
surfaced, did the many headlines in the late 80s bring news about those who
were left behind. Based on the means which those asylum seekers used for the
dramatic journey seeking freedom of speech and religion using small boats, for
the first time, the name “boat people” was invented. A new vocabulary was born:
"boat people." And I was one of them.
In October 1982, I
left Vietnam with 62 other people in a fishing boat 12 meters long to embark about
480 kilometers passage across the Gulf of Thailand to Malaysia. The journey to
freedom lasted for four days! Our tiny fishing boat finally landed on Malaysia
after battling storms on the Gulf of Thailand and encountering ferocious Thai
fishermen who robbed us, beat us, attacked my older brother on his face with a
knife, and sexually assaulted all young ladies in our boat! I witnessed the
moments all the young girls in my boat became the victims of these merciless fishermen.
After the abuse, these men took five of their victims to Thai’s boat. They then
left us. We never see those young ladies again. These horrible moments have
been bitterly engraved in my mind. However, I learnt to forgive those fishermen
who attacked our boat, knifed my brother, and assaulted young ladies. Forgiveness
is not easy. But I learnt to forgive those fishermen; and above all, to forgive
myself, for I, at the age of 20 years old, happened to be a living witness of such
a horrible event.
Relating to the
first word of Jesus on the cross, I myself can also say to God the Father with
regard to the horrible acts of those fishermen, “Father! Teach me to forgive
them, for they did not really know what kind of harm they have done to all of 63
miserable souls on my boat.” Yes, I with God’s grace choose to forgive!
Prayer: Father of mercy and forgiveness, please
help me to forgive fully, freely and forever so that I may be liberated from
the bondage of the past.
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