Sir. 27:30- 28:7; Ps. 103:1-4, 9-12; Rom.14:7-9; Mt. 18:21-35
God is mercy and mercy is forgiveness! “Remember your last days” before you proclaim “no justice no peace”. We are called to “forgive your neighbor’s injustice”. Why do we “hug them tight” our wrath and anger when they are the poison of death while others remain alive? In part, it is because we fail to see ourselves in the sinner. In the heart we give thanks we are not like them and justify our “’righteousness” for anger and vengeance. When we remember our last days the only thing that matters is our own judgment day before God. He will judge the mercy of our hearts based on the love we offered to others.
When Peter asks Jesus “how often must I forgive”, he is thinking between human relationships. Our world however is not just between us humans, it is between us and God. Jesus binds the debt of forgiveness between humans to himself and his sacrifice for us. We owe it to Jesus to forgive others as he has forgiven us infinitely. In this we die to ourselves when we come to realize it is not about us but how we are called to serve him with all our heart, mind and soul. Jesus gave himself completely on the cross for us and we are to respond to this sacrifice in like manner giving ourselves completely to him.
False righteousness is like rejecting the leper for his visible disease while walking in ignorance of the invisible cancer growing inside. “Remember death and decay and cease to sin!” Anger and wrath become the poison we consume that leads to the death and decay of our humanity.
Jesus likened “the kingdom of heaven” to a king who “settles accounts with his servants” and whether “we live or die we are the Lord’s” waiting our own day of judgment. “Remember your last days” is God reminding us to live with the last days in mind so that our actions will be based on our preparation for eternity.
Love humanizes us to a greater degree than the animal instinct to attack back. Love is the antidote to our anger and wrath. Love does not imply we never get angry. Do we have a right to be angry? Yes, anger has a just purpose in life. Anger is like a fever in that the problem is not the fever but what underlies the cause of the fever. Anger is a symptom and we need to examine the cause on its merit. It moves us to speak and right action. Jesus became angry in the temple with the money exchangers. He was moved to action. His action did not end in anger but a call to love God above all.
Justice is the offering of Jesus for our sins for his mercy. It is conditional on our forgiveness “as we forgive others”, our brothers and sisters, neighbors and strangers “from the heart” for the injustice. Jesus speaks to the disciples that “heaven is likened…(to) his master (who) handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt”. As servants of the Lord there is a place for those who fail to forgive “until ‘we’ pay back the whole debt” which as a Catholic church we identify as purgatory. Purgatory is for the chosen who remain with the stain of sin of unforgiveness.
We live in times when the streets proclaim “no justice no peace” seeking reparation for a history of people who have long passed from the earth. Some believe you can be the victim of other’s history standing in for another’s suffering with expectation of compensation as an entitlement. They “hold them tight” wrath and anger for a historical identity as victims without personal sacrifice of suffering in the name of social justice. This is likened to blaming God for the sin of Adam and Eve for falling into a world of sin and suffering. It is a ludicrous philosophy of victimization for all creation.
Who do we need to forgive? It begins in the domestic church, husbands and wives must forgive each other from the heart; children forgive parents for imperfect parenting at best and abandonment or abuse at worse; forgive our friends and neighbors who we have stopped talking with. The root of forgiveness lies at the seed of love from the home. It begins with a decision to forgive and a prayer of petition to receive the grace of forgiveness in the heart. We don’t wait for a feeling to forgive to arrive before forgiving. We act on the command of God to forgive and trust God with our heart to bring us peace.
Take a moment to do an act of forgiveness for anyone who comes to mind who has offended thee regardless of how great the offense was. Do it as an act of love for God regardless of any emotion felt toward the offender. Picture the offender in your life as the sinner on the cross who was promised paradise after he asked Jesus to remember him when he enters into his kingdom. Remember your last days having surrendered all your past sins with a true act of contrition letting go of all anger and wrath and receiving the mercy of God knowing as you have forgiven others you are being forgiven.
Amen.
Recent Comments