By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
It will be difficult to forget the tears and wrenching look of pain and grief on former policewoman Amber Guyger’s face as she recounted the steps that lead up to her decision to fire her weapon and end a human life.
All of us are sinners and thus we are also always in some sense on the path to judgment.
But for Amber, sitting in that courtroom, the sense of being handed over to others to judge her fate was especially powerful and overwhelming.
One night, thinking she was in her own home and facing an intruder, she fired her weapon in self-defense. Amber in fact was the intruder: She had mistakenly entered a neighbor’s apartment. Now she faces a murder charge. Her courtroom testimony was marked by many tears and gripping contrition.
The sense of self-betrayal through choices taken must be great for one faced with evidence as final as a life lost as a result.
The grief and regret she experienced were powerfully tangible. No human power at her disposal can restore the dead man to his family. No one experiences that reality more than Amber as she faces ten years in prison following a guilty judgment.
A powerful moment transfixed the courtroom, however, as the dead man’s brother, a Christian, made an unusual request of the judge. “May I hug her?” he asked. The judge responded in the affirmative.
The photo of the moment he extended mercy to Amber powerfully brought to mind the teaching of the Lord: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
The world beyond the courtroom is now absorbing the full impact of the powerful witness of a Christian man who stepped outside of the constricting confines of human law and justice to bring Christ to life for Amber and for the world.
The convicted woman faces many hard days and nights in prison, but faith can be her light and guide there as much as anywhere.
Union with the Father, in imitation of Christ on the cross, the only Innocent One who was judged guilty for our sake, can help the guilty find new innocence.
Amber’s story is a harsh lesson for all of us in the power of compunction. Perhaps the Christian witness on the part of the brother of the deceased will help her to discover the power of faith in a deeper way.
All of us have been blessed with others to whom we must answer for our choices and decisions, who stand in some way in the place of God the Just Judge.
The experience of falling short of expectations and, more gravely, sin, mark our paths through this world. Perhaps we struggle with imprudence in some areas of our lives that jeopardizes in some way the priorities of our calling. Compunction works with medicinal corrections to help us amend our lives in a thoroughgoing way. This is the hope that should draw us to the future.
Amber met Christ in the courtroom on a day she expected only harsh judgment for her crime. Mere human justice was transformed into divine mercy, a court of justice into a tribunal of Christ’s forgiveness through a faithful witness.
Compunction is tangible in a most powerful way for Amber and all those who face consequences for crimes. All of us are sinners and that same experience of compunction can help all of us to draw from the medicinal corrections and even penalties we face for wrongdoing.
In the Church, penalties are imposed for the sake of the salvation of souls.
Christ in the Church calls us to reject no human person, as He desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Deeper and more consistent interior freedom to follow God’s will can be attained through a lived compunction that results from heartfelt acceptance of corrections or suggestions, spiritual direction, and the regular practice of Confession.
Penances born with eager desire to draw closer to the Lord offered for us on the cross and every day in the Eucharist more fully appropriate the mystery of our redemption. That mystery is meant to be lived out daily by the grace of faith.
Compunction can be born of medicinal correction which must be accepted with humility to bear fruit.
Compunction is the lived state of that interior freedom where one is forgiven, aware of sinfulness and aware of weaknesses and feelings, but at the same time forgiven and strengthened by Mercy. It is a relationship with Jesus Christ.
The dictionary defines compunction as “a feeling of guilt or moral scruple that prevents or follows the doing of something bad.”
Compunction following the doing of something wrong can and must be changed by a lived interior freedom and corrected into the right kind of compunction: that which strengthens one against an immoral or imprudent choice.
Lived contrition, the endurance of gratitude for mercy received, offers a deeper circumspection. It is the more consistent and enduring effort involved in weighing our words and actions for effectiveness, charity, and possible consequences to ourselves and others before speaking or acting.
Amber Guyger will now have ten years of physical confinement in which to contemplate the rash misuse of her human freedom. It will take a lifetime of grace through Christ to spiritually free her from the imprisoning knowledge that her choices led to a man’s death.
Let us pray for her and all who have ended a human life.
Lived contrition can help her and all of us to continue in the mercy we have so generously received and that none of us can truly live without, in all of our decisions and actions.
As we are humbled here, through the lived experience of forgiveness in the strength of the Lord’s mercy, may we look at our journey’s end with the hopeful expectation of being lifted up high.
Thank you for reading.
Praised be Jesus Christ now and forever.
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