Dominica XXI post Pentecosten

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PRESENTATION: Forgiveness is Essential for the Christian

So often, when Our Lord speaks in parables, he’s attempting to hide his meaning from his audience.
When speaking a difficult truth, it’s often easier to let people come to it slowly on their own rather than push it down their throats.
This time however, he is especially blunt.
“So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
This particular parable serves as an illustration for what Christ and his disciples had just been discussing.
St. Peter had just asked how many times it was necessary to forgive,
and Our Lord responded, “Seventy times seven”.
Then to drive the point home, he offers this parable which demonstrates exactly why we should be eager to forgive others.
And the reason is quite simple, we should be eager to forgive, because of how much we ourselves have been forgiven.
Every single human being who has ever lived (excluding Christ and the Blessed Mother), has sinned in some way.
And every single sin we have committed, particularly mortal sins, is a debt we can never repay, just like the 10,000 talents, because it is a debt to an infinite God.
But in his generosity, God has forgiven us that debt by the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.
When someone wrongs us, in a small way, or in a big way, how can we not forgive an injury that will pass away with this world, when we have been forgiven so much ourselves.
When we are wronged, our first thought should be of Christ on the Cross, and the debt that we can never repay, which is powerfully illustrated in the life of St. John Gualbert.
The Holy Bible. (2006). (Revised Standard Version; Second Catholic Edition, Mt 18:35). San Francisco: Ignatius Press.

ILLUSTRATION: Forgiveness brings conversion to St. John Gualbert

St. John Gualbert was born in Florence in the year 999.
Born to wealthy and noble parents, as a young man he was instructed in Christian doctrine, but as he grew his heart was captured by the allurements of the world and he lived a rather secular life.
It happened that his brother Hugo was murdered by a man from the country, by some accounts, a distant relation of the family, and as a young secular noblemen, John vowed revenge upon his brother’s killer.
While travelling home to Florence on Good Friday, John happened to chance upon the murderer, and immediately drew his sword to exact his vengeance.
The murder, surprisingly, did not try to defend himself, but instead jumped off his horse and knelt on the ground.
Stretching out his arms in the shape of the cross, the murderer pleaded for mercy and forgiveness for the sake of the Passion of Christ.
John’s early training in Christian doctrine immediately came back to him, and sheathing his sword lifted the killer to his feet saying,
“I can refuse nothing that is asked of me for the sake of Jesus Christ. I not only give you your life, but also my friendship for ever. Pray for me that God may pardon me my sin.”
After embracing the two of them parted ways, and as John continued his journey he passed a monastery, and went in to pray, asking God to forgive his sins.
While he was praying he saw the giant crucifix above the altar miraculously bowed it’s head to John, as a sign of affirmation in his repentance.
He immediately went to abbot and asked to be admitted to religious life.
John lived the remainder of his life as a devout religious, later founding his own monastery at Vallombrosa near his hometown of Florence.
So forgiveness and mercy saved two lives that day, the killer’s life was spared, and John’s life was saved from his secular pursuits leading him to a life of true holiness.
Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 3, p. 91). New York: P. J. Kenedy.

APPLICATION: Living the Lord’s Prayer

This one parable is, of course, not the only instance when Our Lord teaches on the importance of forgiveness.
Even to the last moments of his life, he was teaching forgiveness by word and example, even to the point of forgiving his persecutors from the Cross.
But there is one instance that we often overlook, because it is perhaps too familiar to us.
When the disciples asked Our Lord to teach them how to pray, he gave them a prayer which we still recite today, perhaps every day of our Christian lives, the Lord’s Prayer.
Often as we rattle off the words, we can fail to take in their meaning, if we don’t take time to reflect on them more deeply.
Towards the end of the prayer, there are two lines, we often separate with a breath, but which are meant to go together,
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”.
Every time we pray that prayer, we are asking God to forgive us, according to the same standard by which we forgive others,
and if we are not willing to forgive, in justice, how can we be forgiven.
The Catechism puts it like this:

2840 Now—and this is daunting—this outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us. Love, like the Body of Christ, is indivisible; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we do not love the brother or sister we do see. In refusing to forgive our brothers and sisters, our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father’s merciful love; but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace.

So we need to ask ourselves, is there anyone whom I have not forgiven, and if the answer is “yes”, then we need to pray to Our Heavenly Father for the grace to truly forgive, not just in words, but from the heart.
Because it is by the measure that we forgive, that we ourselves are forgiven, and how can we be unforgiving, when we ourselves have been forgiven so much already.
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