“Forgiveness” - 24th Sunday OT (A) – 9.17.23

“Forgiveness”

By: Fr. David Schmidt

St. Mark the Evangelist Parish - Butler/Cranberry, PA

Mass Readings - https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/091723.cfm

In today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us about forgiveness.

Forgiveness as we know can be incredibly difficult especially if the person has severely hurt us.

Sometimes when someone does something to us, we have a tendency to on hold onto this anger and resentment within our heart. What happens is that this anger and resentment and lack of forgiveness in our hearts then begins to eat away at us overtime causing our hearts to become hardened and bitter.

In calling each one of us to forgiveness, God calls us to forgive as He forgives. This is a high calling because God’s mercy is scandalous. There are plenty of people who have done awful things but made reparation for it before the Lord. We may think that they should have no chance of getting into heaven because of what they did to us. However, God’s mercy is endless, and even the most hopeless and wicked sinner can enter heaven if they seek out God’s mercy and forgiveness.

In calling us to forgive as God forgives, we can look at the Gospel today to see the depths of forgiveness that we are called too.  

Jesus has this interaction with Peter where Peter asks how often he is to forgive his brother who sins against him. Jesus responds by saying that we should forgive 77 times, which is a numeric symbol for an unlimited amount of forgiveness.

This means for us that there is no limit to God’s forgiveness, and there should be no limit to our forgiveness either.

Again, this is difficult because there are times where we are hurt so badly that we don’t think the other person deserves forgiveness in any way. There might be a sense that they ruined our lives in some way, and that they have taken something from us.

We see this in the parable that Jesus describes. The master forgives the servant the massive debt out of compassion for him. However, the servant fails to forgive a much smaller debt from a fellow servant.

He seizes him, and begins to choke him saying, “Pay me back what you owe!”

There are going to be times where we feel this way. We are so angry and frustrated at the person for what they did to us, that we choke them figuratively and say, “Pay me back what you owe!”

However, the reality is, they can’t. Whatever we feel was taken away based on what that person or those people did to us can never be given back. They can’t give us back the childhood that we feel they stole from us. Or our innocence. Or our reputation. Or our job. Whatever it might be.

The only path forward is forgiveness. However, God knows how radical and difficult forgiveness can be and that we aren’t capable on our own to forgive in this way. We can only forgive others through Christ’s power to forgive which we see so powerfully from the Cross.

As I said before, if we don’t go down the path of forgiveness, then we hold onto the anger and resentment in our hearts, and it just eats at us until our hearts become hardened.

If we hold onto this anger and unforgiveness, it only hurts us and not them. We become held captive by our hurt and pain from those who hurt us.

When we aren’t willing to forgive it prevents God’s mercy and His Holy Spirit to enter into our hearts. The Catechism tells us, “...this outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us.” (CCC #2840). If we want to experience healing, then we need to ask the grace from God to forgive those in our lives that we need to forgive, and to begin the healing journey, so He can set us free.

In the Catechism it again states, “It is there, in fact, "in the depths of the heart," that everything is bound and loosed. It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession.” (CCC #2843)

Whatever we have held onto tightly over the years is found in the depths of our hearts. This means also that whatever we desire to have loosed occurs in the depths of our hearts. We need to allow God into our hearts through forgiving others, so He can bring about the healing that He desires to do.

The Catechism also shows us that forgiveness doesn’t mean we neglect the hurt that we feel or forget what they did to us. If we allow God into this space in our heart, not only will we be able to release our pain to the Lord, but the Holy Spirit within us will turn injury into compassion and purify the memory.

We need to pray for the grace to release this anger onto God and have Him help us to forgive whoever we need to forgive. When we learn to give our anger and resentment to God, then it helps us to begin the healing and forgiveness process.

We must remember too that forgiveness is a process. It may not happen all at once, right away. It may happen step-by-step. If that’s the case, then do what you can do at that moment, and ask God for the grace to take that next step. Maybe it’s just giving that person to the Lord because you don’t have the power to do anything at that moment. Do what you can and allow God to guide you through the whole process.

We might find that as the Lord reveals to our hearts who we need to forgive that two of the people that we need to forgive are God and ourselves.

Sometimes we get angry at God for allowing things to happen to us in our lives, and anger and resentment gets built up towards Him. If this is the case, then share with God how you feel and don’t hold anything back. He will only receive our anger with tender love and mercy.

We may be in a position where we need to forgive ourselves. Maybe there are things from our past that we are ashamed of and have never really forgiven ourselves for it. Today, is a great day, to forgive yourself, and allow God to bring healing to your heart.

Finally, I want to take us through a short prayer of forgiveness to help facilitate the healing process within each of our hearts.

Begin by closing your eyes and imagine yourself being at the foot of the Cross along with the person or people that you need to forgive.

Now look at them, and tell them everything they did to you, and how it affected you, and what it led you to think about yourself.

Then, see from the Cross Jesus saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Then, see Jesus extending His mercy to them.

Now, from the power of Christ’s forgiveness, you extend mercy to them and forgive them.

Say - in the name of the Jesus I forgive (blank) for (blank). And I release them from all anger and resentment.

Say also to Jesus- forgive me for holding onto this anger and bitterness and not forgiving this person.

Pray that Jesus may bless them in the opposite way that they hurt you.

Heavenly Father may you give us the grace to forgive those in our lives that we need to forgive and help us to release any anger and resentment within our hearts, and give it all to you. Flood our hearts with your peace, mercy, and love. And may we experience true freedom in our hearts. Amen.