I would pray that I had the grace to forgive this man. I am awed that this man could so quickly find it in his heart to want to pray for the shooter.
Yahoo.com reports:
It would be understandable for the victims of the Colorado theater shooting and their families to want to seek retribution.
But Pierce O’Farrill, a 28-year-old who was shot three times, says he has forgiven James Holmes, the suspected shooter in last week’s Aurora, Colo., massacre.
“Of course, I forgive him with all my heart,” O’Farrill told reporters shortly before his release from the Univ. of Colorado Hospital on Wednesday. “When I saw him in his hearing, I felt nothing but sorrow for him–he’s just a lost soul right now.”
O’Farrill–a staffer at the Denver Rescue Mission, a Christian charity organization that helps “people at their physical and spiritual points of need, with the goal of returning them to society as productive, self-sufficient citizens”–told the Denver Post he would eventually like to meet Holmes.
“I want to see him sometime,” O’Farrill, one of 58 people wounded in the shooting, said. “The first thing I want to say to him is ‘I forgive you,’ and the next is, ‘Can I pray for you?'”
I pray that I would be this forgiving.