Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf
Father Don Wolf, a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, offers a Catholic perspective on the issues confronting each person today.
Living Catholic with Father Don Wolf
Forgive Us Our Trespasses | September 28, 2025
In this episode Father Wolf reflects on Erica Kirk's public forgiveness of her husband's murderer and explores how this fundamental Christian teaching continues to surprise our culture despite being central to our faith. We examine why such a basic element of Christianity stunned observers and what it reveals about our disconnect between religious teaching and practice.
• The memorial rally for Charlie Kirk drew 60,000 people and approximately 100 million streaming views
• Erica Kirk's unexpected declaration of forgiveness for her husband's killer shocked onlookers
• Catholics pray "forgive us as we forgive" regularly, yet public displays of forgiveness are treated as extraordinary
• Forgiveness is not a one-time event but a process that may take years to fully realize
• When we forgive, we free ourselves from the burden of resentment and vengeance
• Father Wolf shares his personal struggle with forgiving someone over a $10,000 grievance that troubled him for decades
• The journey of forgiveness begins with simply saying the words "I forgive," even when emotions don't align
• Our own freedom is the gift we receive when we choose to forgive
Begin with the words "I forgive" in your prayer. Don't worry if you don't feel anything except anger or frustration. It's a beginning. Keep saying, keep repeating this central part of the life of faith. It will matter.
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Father Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.
This is Living Catholic with Father Don Wolfe. This show deals with living the Catholic faith in our time, discovering God's presence in our lives and finding hope in His Word. And now your host, father Don Wolfe.
Speaker 2:Welcome Oklahoma to Living Catholic. I'm Father Don Wolfe, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish and rector of the Shrine of Blessed Stanley Rother. The biggest thing in the news lately is the rally held Sunday last to honor the memory of Charlie Kirk. As we all know, he was shot at one of his events in Utah. His young life was snuffed out in a moment, leaving behind a wife and two children. He also left behind this political movement that has been noted for its effectiveness and its impact on the last election. So, more than simply one other victim of gun violence, he was a symbol of a new generation giving voice to political concerns. In fact, it would appear he was shot as a result of his voice. His alleged killer, they say, could not abide Charlie's thought and expression. With his violent and unexpected death, he became a symbol for all of those who felt their voices silenced or diminished, as well for all those who want to see his ideas and his fervor spread. Those elements were on display powerfully at the rally held in his memory.
Speaker 2:The center of the event was when his widow, erica Kirk, mounted the stage. Apparently, everyone there was holding their collective breath because, of course, she was the woman of the hour. Her husband had been the center of attention throughout their relationship. He was the founder of the movement that made him so famous and the author of the videos that everyone watched. The comments and opinions that accounted for his notoriety were his, not hers. She'd lived in the background and had been illuminated only by the light of his fame. Now that he had been murdered, she took center stage. It had been arranged that way, of course. According to reports, there were what? 60,000 people at the event, but, most importantly for the event itself, there were something like 100 million views as it was streaming. It was a moment much greater than many cornerstone political events, including even some presidential debates. This was a venue that mattered, an event that was like an earthquake. The memorial itself had been designed to put Ms Kirk in the middle. According to the reports about her, she may have lived in the background, but she was hardly invisible. It wasn't as if she had been living on a different planet than he, only that he had been on center stage while she'd been at the back of the stage. She'd been Miss Arizona. She was an independent businesswoman. She'd become a kind of model for motherhood, in partnership with her famous husband, when it was time for her to step forward. She was comfortable and at ease, and so she began to speak. Everyone was waiting to hear what she had to say about her husband's murder.
Speaker 2:The grieving widow is an archetype of personality that has deep roots throughout our literature and storytelling. She's a figure that can move in almost any direction, from vengeance and havoc to impotent frustration. The widow thrust into the spotlight can take almost any form in the narration of events, so everyone was waiting to see what would happen and how she would respond. Virtually anything could happen, so almost everything was expected. Not only that, she had the freedom of her emotion, that is, given the depth of her sorrow and the violence she'd suffered. She had the opportunity to say almost anything. She could have blubbered her way through some explanation, or she could have solemnly assured everyone of her indifference, or anything in between. All could be explained sincerely, because no one expected her to have to be able to do anything more than make an appearance. She was, after all, the one person in the whole stadium most affected by what had happened, and so her words were a surprise to many.
Speaker 2:By what had happened, and so her words were a surprise to many. She began by expressing her forgiveness of the one who had assassinated her husband. She stepped forward, paused for a moment and then expressed her willingness, her desire to forgive the murderer who had taken so much from her. Her voice quavered, she paused and then she forgave. As you might expect, the crowd seemed to go wild. It was odd to hear the playback on the video and to hear people cheering and whistling. I've never heard the proclamation of forgiveness shared in a venue like that. Given the days leading up to it and the energy propelling the gathering, it was unexpected and it seemed mildly inappropriate. Of course it wasn't as if they were in church on Sunday morning praying the confidier together. Everyone was gathered in an atmosphere that was predicated on the supplementing of emotional expression. The music and the venue were arranged so that the feelings there could be shared and, by the sharing, amplified and intensified. Her brief statement took on a life of its own. As it was expressed, she was able to do something with her words that most people cannot do, and when those words were stated, they had the power to transfix the ones who heard them.
Speaker 2:Commentators have been going on and on about them since then, that is, those who paid attention to them. I don't know about the national news or the comments from major media. The reporting of this kind of event is not the thing one hears about on national news. Rather, it has its spot in the niche corners of those who talk regularly about religion. Such talk is not common on a national stage, and while this stage was certainly national, the subject matter wasn't.
Speaker 2:But among the comments that I saw, there was real enthusiasm about what she said. Over and over again I heard that these words heralded a new age in the religious sentiment of our times. They were, according to some, the sum of the most religious moment in our public square for an entire generation. One pundit opined that such a moment was a return to respectability of religion in the public forum. Whatever it was, they said it was transformative. This fragile, grieving widow forgave her husband's killer on the most public stage imaginable and the world went wild.
Speaker 2:And it makes all of us wonder. First of all about the response. If you're a Catholic, then you have to wonder at the power of such words as they become public because we say them over and over as we pray the, our Father and the Confidier together every Sunday, standing in the crowd or listening over the airwaves. You'd have to wonder at the amazement of a stunned assembly when you hear someone repeat out loud what we ourselves have repeated over and over again thousands of times. Did they think we were just kidding ourselves or that we don't mean or didn't mean what we said?
Speaker 2:It reminds me of the media response to Pope Francis at the beginning of his pontificate, because during one of the unscripted interviews that he gave to a reporter, pope Francis was asked how he would describe himself. He spoke for a moment and then he mentioned that he would call himself a sinner who was looking to know God and to serve him better. The reporter took it all down and then fashioned the news to reflect the Pope's words as if they had been groundbreaking. Quote the Pope says he's a sinner. Unquote became the headline everywhere.
Speaker 2:For the uninitiated which turned out to be just about everybody, it sounded like some moment of clarity and humility had just broken out on the skyline of the Vatican. It was as if a secret from the archives had been leaked by a brave journalist willing to risk all to inform the world. Of course, many people were convinced this pope was going to be unique in his pastoral approach and by this accounting he would be somebody more approachable and gentler than others, so they were hungry to hear that such things might be said about him. And yet we know the Pope was expressing out loud to a reporter what he had said 10,000 times before as he celebrated Mass. In fact, every Pope had repeated what every Catholic in the world repeats as Mass began. I confess to Almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have gravely sinned. It's hardly groundbreaking, and yet, at the same time, nobody apparently had ever taken it seriously enough actually to apply it to the person of the Pope. Yes, the Pope is a sinner, just as he said the truth every Catholic acknowledges about himself and just as every Pope has confessed about himself every day for the better part of 2,000 years. It's amazing what can make headlines? It was literally the case that newspapers were reporting that the Pope was Catholic. As a matter of fact, it was humorous if you think about it.
Speaker 2:In the case of Ms Kirk, her response is something like the Chinese bishop who'd been imprisoned for his entire life. He'd been ordained and then almost immediately put in prison by the regime. After decades of prison life, he was released, rome quickly made him a bishop and he was put back in prison again to keep him away from his people and to control whatever influence he might have had. Ten years after his second prison stay began, he was released and then sent into exile. When questioned whether he forgave the persecutors who had ruined his life, he said Well, I am a Christian.
Speaker 2:Forgiveness is what Christians do. In fact, we're commanded to forgive. It's not a suggestion or a recommendation that comes from Jesus. It is a direct imperative for those who want to follow him. Amid the teaching of Jesus, this is at the center. Because we have been forgiven by God, we are to forgive. In the story of the woman who bathed Jesus' feet with her tears and wiped them away with her hair, jesus reminds his skeptical host that the one who loves much is forgiven much. Since we're all loved by the Father, we are to forgive as we are forgiven. And that's just the beginning of the teaching. The most prominent of Jesus' parables is of the prodigal son. In fact, the parable should be renamed the parable of the ungrateful sons. In it, the father patiently receives his wayward son back with enthusiasm and schools his indignant son in the meaning of forgiveness.
Speaker 2:The heart of Jesus' teaching is the willingness to forgive and to find new life amid the realities of spite and waste and greed and vengeance. The culmination of this teaching, of course, is appropriately named the Lord's Prayer. In the prayer given in the teaching of Jesus himself, in response to the question about how to pray, jesus instructs his followers, as we know, to forgive us as we forgive those who sin against us. This changes the valence. It places in our hands the focus of the energy to forgive. We're not only willing to forgive because we've been forgiven, that is, we're not just giving away something that comes to us, following up the generous gift of another to us by being generous ourselves to another. We're inviting God himself to measure the forgiveness offered to us by depending on our willingness to take the initiative to forgive others. Forgive us just as much as we forgive another is the contract we enter into. And since this is at the heart of belief, it should come as no surprise that the vulnerable widow turns to the killer and extends her offer of forgiveness to him. It's what is expected of us believers. It's at the heart of what we pray. It's supposed to mark us in every way.
Speaker 2:Yet in the midst of these aspects of our teaching and history, the words remain surprising. Not only that they're hard to hear, they're just as jarring as they are unexpected. We all know these things to be true. Not only that, we know they're really important. Living amid non-forgiveness is a burden we all want to be relieved from, and none of us want to be forgiven from the wrong we've done to others. This is more immediate and more impactful to us, actually in our experience, than even the desire to be forgiven by God for the sins we have committed. After all, when we have to live around those that we've done wrong to, we know we are in debt to them. We depend on them to wipe away the stain on our relationship. It's the prerequisite for us continuing to do our best together For husbands and wives, for children and parents, for in-laws, for friends and neighbors, even for fellow workers. We know that forgiveness is an essential part of how we can be together, and without it, with the world being simply a collection of debts and demerits, figuring out what is owed to us and what we owe to one another, our lives become diminished and our potential becomes limited. Because without forgiveness, we're in trouble.
Speaker 2:It's not just in the day-to-day with the people we know. It's, above all, true in our relationship with God as well the sins we commit, the errors of judgment and action we accumulate in our lives. They have to be adjusted in some manner in order for our lives to progress on a pathway of meaning and relationship. If we're lost in vengeance and repayment trying to make up for the wrong we did in our lives, we would be endlessly exhausted. In fact, throughout the Old Testament, the desire to adjust what was wrong and restart the measure of what was right was a major concern in every aspect of life. An entire vocabulary and a complete substructure of life was provided so that everyone could restore his life and his relationship with God. By way of sacrifice and service, the people found a way to get through the challenges of their errors and sin.
Speaker 2:We know all these things are true and yet hearing Ms Kirk is still jarring. Knowing our history and appreciating our teaching these aren't enough. But we know those words of hers are hard. And because they are hard, when we hear them we wonder how sincere they are. And we wonder not because we think she's not a sincere person. We wonder because the words can be said easily when the sentiment and the meanings are absent. It's possible to say what is expedient and celebrated and withhold what is essential. In short, we can listen and question whether she really could bring herself to this extraordinary response, to this horrific situation. Did she really mean what she said? Is this the best way for a person for her to respond? Said Is this the best way for a person for her to respond? It is what Jesus said to do.
Speaker 2:We don't have to diagnose her motives or understand that by reading the scriptures and praying the Our Father, she was impelled to take this step. It was something important for her to do, no matter what else was going on in her life and in her mind at the moment. It was important for her to address this challenge in her life. Forgiveness was demanded of her by Christ himself. The second thing to notice is that we all know this is a process. That's probably the most salient thing to note as we listen to her words. It's easy to imagine no one could bring herself to make such a statement sincerely, given the freighted and complicated meanings of those words, especially in this. It's easy to imagine no one could bring herself to make such a statement sincerely, given the freighted and complicated meanings of those words, especially in this situation.
Speaker 2:But the challenge to forgive and the dynamic by which it happens. There's something much larger than simply repeating some words, even when it's done in front of millions of people. I forgive is about as facile as saying I do in front of a church full of invitees. It's easy to say. It's a lot harder actually to perform. In fact, it can take an entire lifetime to put flesh around the bare bones of sentiment and words. I forgive is about the most basic beginning a person can make Making it happen or allowing it to root into the deepest parts of life. That takes time.
Speaker 2:After all, every aspect of her life was damaged by the sin committed against her. The future of her livelihood, the raising of her children, her relationship with every person in her life, even the way she will relate to men and women in the next 20 years, are all affected by what her husband's killer did as he sighted his rifle and pulled the trigger. In each aspect of her life, when she encounters difficulty or complication, she'll find a new level of frustration and a deeper challenge to embrace what she said. Forgiving isn't easy and it isn't just in a moment. It's the process of reorienting life, and going in another direction in life is about as easy as having a fence go in another direction. It involves digging up a lot of what is already built and, having excavated it, building it in a whole new way.
Speaker 2:The other part to notice, though, is that forgiveness is not commentary on the seriousness of the crime itself. That is, she's not confessing that the murder of her husband was no big deal to her, or that the one who chose to commit the crime was not evil, or that its impact didn't mean anything to her. None of those things are true. Or that its impact didn't mean anything to her. None of those things are true. Her choice to forgive is the choice she makes to allow the power of forgiveness to give her the freedom not to carry the weight of resentment and vengeance on her shoulders. Whatever light can shine from the future can be blotted out by demanding another repay the debt that is owed by the sin he committed. If there is nothing to life but pluses and minuses of what is owed and what is paid, then life will become a burden. Even if the balance sheet tilts in your favor, she frees herself by forgiving.
Speaker 2:I had a very small version of this in my own life. For decades. Decades, I carried around in my life a minor resentment against someone who had not kept his word to our family. It's a complicated thing, but basically it came down to something like $10,000 each. It's a lot of money in sum, but in terms of a lifetime not so much. Over the years I felt the injustice of it like a BB in my shoe. It just wouldn't go away. In fact, I would spend some of my free time imagining how I'd get, even not by some sort of violence, but by telling that person exactly how he had hurt all of us and how he needed to make it up to us. As many times as I thought of what I would say and how devastating my words would be, that $10,000 proved to be a kind of bargain in cheap entertainment.
Speaker 2:One day at mass, as my mind was wandering, I was embarrassed by what I was thinking. Thank God we don't have thought balloons that everyone can see out in the open. It would have been scandalous to imagine they knew what was taking place in the life and thoughts of their pastor at that moment. Because there I was as the second reading was being read at mass sitting, not 10 feet away from the tabernacle. There I was nurturing my resentment. I realized it was scandalous to imagine that I was so small and so petty, so consumed with this matter that I put everything off to the side as it occupied my thoughts one more time. That's when I knew I had to put a stop to it. I immediately said the words of forgiveness in my mind to this person and then, immediately after that, asked God to forgive me for the time and energy and graces I had wasted with the foolishness of my feelings. In a moment, the darkness of resentment left me and for the first time I was free of it. I was free to regard this person, who had grieved our family, as what he was a person. It was a moment of liberation. That's what it is to forgive it's to celebrate freedom.
Speaker 2:The beginning of forgiveness is the words. There's no way anyone can condition the act of forgiving by anticipating everything that might happen or that might result. In fact, no one can push through the resistance to forgiving except by saying the words and intending their results. It may be a thin reed on which to rest the gift of salvation, but no one begins the process of forgiving except by the words I forgive. This sounds harsh and perhaps impossible to those who face the prospect of forgiving their assailants or their abusers. Imagining Jesus demanded such a thing, in which the challenge seems to be on possibility, is defeating, but only if we hold in our hearts that the entire process must take place all at once and in one moment. Does it seem defeating? In my experience, it took years of marinating in the disappointment and self-righteousness of my resentment before I was able to face up to the words I needed to say. For many people, these are moments in which the invitation of Jesus becomes so irresistible there's no other path, and for most of us, the first step becomes being able to say the words, no matter how hard they are and how impossible their effect seem. I don't doubt that Ms Kirk's words are a combination of these dynamics.
Speaker 2:Seldom do the options of life present us with a finished product, done and done. Instead, we're invited to begin. Over and over, we begin and we begin until we find ourselves where we wanted to be when we began, whether it's a day or a decade. We begin with the words. I forgive If it is the case that you're struggling to begin. Begin with the words. Take a moment in your prayer, bring to mind the offense, imagine the person who has a sin against you, recall the invitation of Jesus and simply say the words we are invited to say I forgive. Don't worry if you don't feel anything except anger or frustration, and certainly don't worry if you don't feel relief or rescue. It's a beginning. Keep saying, keep repeating this central part of the life of faith. It will matter. The Latin saying is that the word is father to the act. By beginning with the word of forgiveness, you'll end with the truth of forgiveness in your life. And remember, it is your own freedom that is your gift. Well, that and the gift of the kingdom, all the way to heaven. In the end, it's not such a bad bargain. We pray that the souls of all the faithfully departed, no matter how violently taken and horribly abused their lives were, may rest in the peace of Christ. This is our hope. It's our only hope. Back in just a moment.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to our final segment, faith in Verse of a poem today called Our Curious Life. We have a curious life, we priests, as we open our eyes to our people, spending our time with the lowest and the least, and at the best, when all is good and gleeful, the full range of living from smiles. Our collars open the door to everyone, or at least invite so many to their fears and accompany all who are dark and glum, so that in every moment and as part of each plan, we're tasked to consider the full measure, from the smallest part to what is full and grand, from the fear of pain to the greatest pleasure. For each opportunity we speak of sin, just as in every pain, we promise joy. Our days are inscribed again and again with promise and hope, amid the noise. That's our curious life. There's no getting over that. We live in interesting times, but all our times that come to us are the place and the moment where we experience the presence of Christ. I hope you can come to join us in the weeks to come.
Speaker 1:Living Catholic is a production of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City for Oklahoma Catholic Radio. To learn more, visit okcrorg.