The Rev Julie Nicholson, 52, has felt unable to celebrate communion for her parishioners since her daughter, Jenny, was killed at Edgware Road on July 7 last year. Unwilling to be a hypocrite, she has resigned from the parish of St Aidan with St George in Bristol.
"It's very difficult for me to stand behind an altar and celebrate the Eucharist, the Communion, and lead people in words of peace and reconciliation and forgiveness when I feel very far from that myself, So for the time being, that wound in me is having to heal. In terms of my ministry, a colleague and a friend recently said priesthood begins in the world, not in the church, and I was very relieved to hear that; because what I am trying to do now is redefine my priesthood. I am looking for a way in which I can still have priestly ministry when there are some things I can no longer practise, or I can't currently practise, and for me that's about integrity."
It's important that she is clearly not saying that she will not forgive, rather that she "can't currently". Forgiveness means we have to pay a price: we have to forego revenge, we have to empathise to some degree with the perpetrator or at least be able to assert a common humanity and understand in some way, we have to learn to love the sinner while hating the sin. And none of that is easy when the hurt goes deep. It is harder too when the act was committed or is perceived to have been committed with malice aforethought. To forgive we have to bear the pain rather than inflict it on another. We have to move beyond retribution to restoration and that costs.
I am currently, still, thinking about the cross as an icon of God's pain to forgive us ...
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Vicar who cannot forgive tube bombers quits pulpit:
Filed in: Christian, forgiveness, integrity, spirituality, healing
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