Forgiveness

Thursday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 74 (73):20, 19, 22, 23 Look to your covenant, O Lord, and forget not the life of your poor ones for ever. Arise, O God, and defend your cause, and forget not the cries of those who seek you.

Collect Almighty ever‑living God, whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters, that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: Ezechiel 12:1-12; Psalm 77; Matthew 18:21–19:1

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times? Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow- servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. His fellow- servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow- servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart. When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. (Matthew 18:21–19:1)

Forgiveness I would invite anyone to look back on his or her life and ask, what has been my biggest difficulty? Doubtlessly there will have been numerous difficulties — disappointments, frustrations, failures — but I suspect that for most, the biggest difficulty will be that of coming to terms with past and present injuries. The difficulty will be the sense and the memory of injury, insult, injustice, as the case may be. The memory will be painful and a source of constant if submerged anger, indignation and resentment. This is a common experience of life. Those who have their wits about them will realize that this has to be kept in check, as does every other nagging problem, if the work of life is to proceed. It has to be corralled, confined to a certain corner of life and consciousness while the pressing business of each day continues. But there the anger and the memory remain, quietly festering and never healing. The experience of injury is inevitable in a fallen world, and the injury can be great and undeserved. It may be partially deserved, and partially not. An injury sustained during the early years of life, an injury thoughtlessly or even in good faith inflicted, an injury which is nevertheless perceived to be an injustice, can cause a life-long bitterness. With this bitterness comes a degree of unhappiness, and in any case it limits the power of a person to love and serve. The one who is secretly burdened with the bitterness of a past injury may wish that he or she did not feel this bitterness, but it seems impossible to shake it off. It has lodged deep in the mind and heart and holds its position with a vice-like grip. It is always resurfacing, and memories have to be held strictly in check if a personal equilibrium is to be maintained. That is the human problem. What, then, to do? Rather, what does Jesus Christ say we are to do? Let us notice that he does not pat us on the head and soothingly say, yes, I understand — don’t worry about it. It was all his or their fault. Just carry on and try to forget it. Of course, Jesus Christ does understand — he went through it himself. But he says firmly: you must forgive, and forgive from the heart!

In fact, the matter of forgiveness of those who have injured us is one of the fundamentals of the Christian life. It may even be among the most distinctive features of the Christian religion. I would be interested to ask an expert on the Jewish religion what place does the forgiveness of injuries from the heart have in its scheme. In the Old Testament, man's forgiveness of his fellow-man for injuries is mentioned, but infrequently. It is revealing that our Lord said that “You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say to you....” (Matt 5:43-44). That is to say, the arrival of the Messiah was needed to bring the teaching of absolute forgiveness into full relief. Or again, where is forgiveness from the heart in the religion of Islam? Where is it repeatedly and unambiguously stressed in the Koran? For Islam, forgiving those who wrong you is a good thing. But if you take revenge instead, you will not be blamed (Koran Sura 42:37-43; 2:194). Perhaps the most intractable locale of conflict in the contemporary world is that between the Israelis and certain sections of the Palestinians in the Middle East. It is being fuelled by the mutual sense of past injury and injustices. What a transformation there would be were each side led by a religious dogma that made forgiveness from the heart a moral imperative! Christ lays down forgiveness from the heart as an absolute moral imperative, and the sad thing is that too few of his followers are true disciples in this acid test. On one occasion when our Lord had finished his teaching on the danger of wealth, he said of salvation, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matt 19: 26). The same may be said of forgiveness from the heart. We must do all we can, and ask God insistently for the grace to bring our efforts to perfection. Our ambition ought be to end each day, having forgiven from the heart all those who in the past have injured us. If we make this our aim, we may, by the end of life, have succeeded.

How wonderful it will be if, as we breathe our last on our final sick-bed, our heart has been freed from all refusal to forgive. The problem is that we do not know when our call may come. It may come suddenly and with no time to prepare. We may be dead before we know it. Are we ready to stand suddenly before our Judge, ready in the sense of having forgiven all, and from the heart? Let us begin now, today, in the great and demanding work of forgiveness. Jesus is our example. Ah yes, now I begin!

(E.J.Tyler)

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A Second Reflection: (Matthew 18:21-19:1)

The Imperative to Forgive Time and again in the Scriptures God warns of the dire results of disregarding his holy will. Punishment will assuredly come if there is not repentance. Consider Ezechiel 12: 1-12. We see it again in our Lord's words in Matthew 18:21-19:1. In this passage the master hands his unforgiving servant over to the torturers till he should pay his impossibly large debt. Our Lord concludes by saying that that is how our heavenly Father — our Father! — will deal with us unless we forgive from the heart. So, however difficult it might be, we just must strive every day to forgive all those who have injured us in any way. The thought of a coming judgment and punishment for failure to forgive may help and motivate us. The thought of God's forgiveness of us, with our far larger debts, should help even more. So should the very example of our Lord, forgiving to the last those who injured him.

Whatever be our motivation, we simply must go to our judgment before God having forgiven all, if we want to be forgiven ourselves. Let's make that our life's ambition: to forgive all and to forgive everything. It will require great and daily renunciation.

(E.J.Tyler)

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