Forgiveness is a Christian virtue and is the hallmark of our Christian faith and practice.
Forgiving the other in the full sense is a form of loving and caring. It is the miracle
of a new beginning. It is to start where we are, not where we wish we were, or the
other person was. It is to hold out a hand; to want to renew a friendship; to want
a new relationship with husband, father, daughter, friend, or indeed enemy. It may
not take away the hurt and it does not deny the past injury. It does not ignore the
possibility and need for repentance and a change in the relationship. It means being
willing to take the initiative in dealing with any barriers that I may be raising
towards a restored relationship. It means that I am willing to have a relationship
with the other person that is based on Christian love and not on what has happened
in the past, if the response of the other person makes that possible. Christ from
the cross showed what forgiveness is and how far we can go. The first reading from
the Book of Sirach tells us that if we forgive our neighbour, we ourselves will be
forgiven. In the gospel of today Jesus tells us in response to Peter’s limited generosity
that there is no limit to forgiveness. We are a people in need of forgiveness and
we are endlessly called upon to forgive. Jesus tells us that we must be compassionate
as our heavenly Father is compassionate. Summing up in the context of faith Paul
tells he Church of Rome that Jesus is Lord both of the living and the dead and is
the master of the Universe. In the first reading of today Sirach tells us that
we must forgive our neighbour if we want God to forgive our own sins. We must be merciful
if we want to obtain mercy from God. We must not seek revenge on a neighbour of ours
lest God should take vengeance on us. If we remember our end in life we will keep
God’s commandments and we will not be angry with our neighbour who offends us. He
says it is possible only for a sinful man to be angry with his neighbour. The man
who repays the neighbour in kind must expect God to do likewise to him. Only when
we forgive the other person generously, then only God will forgive us. While we expect
mercy and forgiveness from the infinite God whom we have offended, we often refuse
a brother even a small measure of mercy and forgiveness. Hence we are told to forgive
our neighbour and then our sins will be pardoned in the course of our prayer. The
infinite God condescended to make a pact, a covenant with the Israelites. Because
of this covenant again and again he forgave them their sins of neglect and disloyalty.
Surely a mere man must forgive a fellowman, an equal, who has offended him, if he
expects God the creator who is merciful to forgive him. In the second reading Paul
reminds the Romans of the fundamental privilege which the incarnation has conferred
on them. By his life and death Christ did atone for all the sins of the world. But
he did something much more basic for our welfare, namely, he fulfilled God’s plan
for our elevation to make us his adopted sons and daughters. Thus when the Son of
God took our human nature, that human nature was united with the Godhead and we became
brothers in Christ. Here Paul emphasizes the fact that through our Baptism we have
been made members of Christ’s mystical body, we have become brothers of Christ, intimately
united with him in his death and resurrection. He tells the fact that whether living
or dead a Christian belongs to Christ. It was for this purpose, to unite all men closely
to him, not only in this life but more specifically in the life to come, that Christ
became man and made his dwelling among us. As persons who are baptized in the name
of Christ we belong to him. He consoles the church that earthly death cannot separate
a person from Christ and God. By his victory over death through his resurrection
Christ has obtained a resurrection for the humankind. Therefore Paul insists that
we are no more individual creatures but we have an eternity of life and happiness
awaiting us when we die. Jesus taught his disciples how it is necessary for them
ever to be ready to forgive their fellowmen who injured them. Today’s Gospel opens
with one of Peter’s straight forward questions, asking the Lord how often he ought
to forgive. If he forgives seven times was it sufficient. According to the rabbinical
tradition forgiveness apparently extends to three offences and the fourth offence
calls for punishment. Good hearted Peter doubles the forgiveness of the rabbis and
adds one for good measure and considers himself very generous. To his surprise Jesus
is not impressed and tells him that it is not seven but seventy seven. Luke makes
it further more difficult to count saying seventy times seven. In other words you
may not attach a number, a limit, to the times you forgive. He then tells them a parable
to bring out the lesson: unless we forgive our brother, God will not forgive us. If
we take revenge on our offending brother, God will take revenge on us. We have the
solemn word of Jesus that our heavenly Father will punish us if we do not forgive
our brother from our heart. In the Sermon on the Mount he tells us that if our brother
has done something wrong, and you are offering the sacrifice, leave it there on the
altar, go and reconcile and come to offer. Here we recall the question of Peter who
said that if his brother sins against him, meaning, the personal offence committed
by one member of the community against another member. It is the offence committed
by a fellow believer in the context of the community. Again in a normal sense forgiveness
differs from the crime. You forgive the sin but punish the crime. Blessed John Paul
II forgave Agca generously and held lovingly his hand. But he did not ask the Italian
Government to release him. What Jesus asks is to forgive the sin within the crime.
However, Jesus does not restrict the forgiveness to members of the community and in
Our Father, he extends it all. The forgiveness that Jesus teaches originates with
God and the Bible elaborates this forgiveness. This is given to us in the Book of
Jonah and more specifically in today’s responsorial psalm which tells us: “The Lord
is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love; the Lord
does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities.
As far as the East is from the West, so far does our Lord remove our transgressions
from us.” God’s forgiving love is presented by Isaiah. When the Jews complained that
God has forgotten them, the Lord replies saying, can a woman forget her nursing child,
or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even if these forget, yet God will
not forget his people. Look, he says, I have carved you on the palm of my hand. Thus
the Bible gives us the picture of a God who is compassionate; he is a God of forgiveness.
For us Christians this message comes in the compassionate love of Jesus. This is because,
God loved the world so much that he gave his only son for our sake so that we may
not perish but that we may have eternal live in him. The type of forgiveness involved
in it is shown in the parable of the unforgiving servant. Coming to the parable
itself, we see the first servant owed the master ten thousand talents and the second
servant owed the other just one hundred denarius. A talent was worth 15 years’ wages
for a worker and a denarius was a day’s wage. The first servant would have taken
410 years to pay off the debt while the other only three months of work. The generous
master forgave the debt that would have needed more than four hundred a year’s of
work while the second servant was put in prison for three months wages. We note here
that the master in the parable is God. We humans have been forgiven a debt so enormous
that we could never pay for it. It is the debt of our sins and all its consequences
like the enmity with God. To pay our debt we remember that Jesus was crucified and
he expects us to forgive others the little mistakes they may have done. We are
told by Jesus in the parable to forgive others as God has forgiven us, to live the
Our Father: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
For God to forgive us means to change us and accept us into a new relationship with
him. It is make our entire relationship alive with the life of God. It is an invitation
to be one with God and become his new creation. Only God can forgive us and show
us the new way in which we can live. When Bl. John Paul II forgave Agca, he did not
change his heart, but God changed it. We as his followers only prepare the way for
others to change. There are two remarkable benefits that come from forgiving. First
benefit touches us who forgive: If you forgive others their wrong doing, the heavenly
Father will also forgive us. The second benefit accrues those we forgive: we can be
an instrument of God’s grace to others, help to make them better than they are. Today
Christ applies the lesson of the parable to his disciples telling them that if they
do not forgive the other from their heart they will not receive the forgiveness from
God. He clearly reminds each of us that our offence committed against God is far greater
than those done to us by fellow men. Hence forgiveness has to be part and parcel of
our Christian lives. Indeed there are two different approaches to offence and
forgiveness, to reconciliation. One approach is human approach where we expect the
person to repent the wrong done, apologize the other for it and repair the injury.
Finally receive the pardon for the same. The other is the Christian understanding
of reconciliation, where we see how freely God has forgiven us and the grace of forgiveness
given to us. Inspired by the divine forgiveness, we repent and also extend the forgiveness
to the other. Here reconciliation does not begin with the offender but with the victim.
God will forgive the soul that forgives others. God will welcome the return of such
a child into the Body of Christ to continue its sanctification. The Holy Spirit will
once more dwell within the body of the repentant individual. God will bless the person
with numerous graces, this being God's way of rejoicing in this great moment. God
rejoices more for the one soul that is saved than for the ninety nine that were not
in need of being saved. The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant raises
the frightening prospect that pardon already granted by God could be revoked. The
king who forgave his servant his debt meant it. But when the servant went out and
failed to forgive his fellow servant, the king revoked the pardon. By his action the
servant had shown that he did not appreciate and therefore was unworthy of the pardon
given to him. Is this a good analogy of how God deals with us? That seems to be the
point of the parable. Jesus tells us that his heavenly Father will also do to every
one of them, if they do not forgive their brother or sister from their heart. In other
words, when God gives us His word of forgiveness, everything is not over yet. The
deal is finally concluded only when we are able to go out and forgive those who sin
against us. The free grace of God's forgiveness needs our response of forgiving our
neighbour to be finally ratified. This is indeed a frightening thought. Hence the
first reading tells us to forgive our neighbours the wrong they have done, and then
our sins will be pardoned when we pray. We find it hard to forgive others even though
that is the only way to anchor God's forgiveness because we fail to appreciate and
celebrate our own forgiveness like the ungrateful servant in the parable. We tend
to focus on the little things our neighbour owes us rather than the larger amounts
we owe to God, which God has graciously chosen to forgive. There are two very clear
messages from both the parable and the words from the Sermon on the Mount: The first
is that we dare not hold back forgiveness from those God forgives. We know from the
Gospel, God's attitude towards wrongdoers and his penchant for forgiveness. But the
second message is that the divine patience is not infinite. God, as Jesus tells us
to do, is ready to forgive 77 times. And, when it comes to the forgiveness of our
own sins, we take this for granted. At the same time, there is a limit to the extent
of God's forgiveness in the sense that it is conditional. That condition is determined
first, by our readiness to respond to his forgiveness through our repentance and conversion,
and second, by our willingness to imitate him in practicing forgiveness of those we
feel have offended or hurt us. Forgiving in the full Christian sense is a form of
loving and caring. Today are told to forgive others and our forgiveness should not
be just once or twice, but seventy times seven. This means that it is an ongoing forgiveness,
day after day, week after week, years after years, this being done without counting.
When we do not forgive someone, it is because we are passing judgment on that person.
Jesus commanded us not to judge others so that we will not be judged. A wealthy
man had two sons. The older one was gentle, industrious and obedient. The younger
one, to the contrary, was lazy, thoughtless and wilful. He loved to run away from
home to meet with his vagrant friends. This greatly saddened his father. Once, when
the father left for a few days, the younger son decided to throw a party for his friends.
The music blared and the wine poured. The friends, being aroused by the wine, started
to quarrel. There ensued a bad fight, culminating in severe injuries and a fire in
the house. To avoid punishment, the younger son ran away. The father, upon returning
home, became very upset with his younger son. The older son, feeling sorry for his
brother, went to find him. After searching for several years, he finally found him,
ill and exhausted in jail in some border town. The older son paid the judge the required
fine and obtained his brother's release. Then he ministered to him, got him some decent
clothes and took him back to his home estate. However, the younger son, realizing
his guilt, was afraid even to appear before his father. To help him, the older brother
went to the father, fell on his knees and tearfully began asking him to forgive the
younger son. He guaranteed that the other had changed, and offered to make good all
the losses his brother had caused. The father, touched by the love of the older son,
forgave the younger one and accepted him unconditionally. The younger son, having
become wiser by adversity, and especially by his brother's kindness, changed completely.
For the rest of his life he remained a comfort and support to his aging father.