St. Maria Goretti Parish recently issued the following announcement.

How forgiving are you? Peter in the Gospel passage today thinks that he is beginning to understand Jesus’ teaching when he offers the seemingly generous standard of forgiveness – “as many as seven times”. Of course Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” In other words our forgiveness needs to be limitless. 

This is one of the difficult teachings of Jesus. In the first scripture reading today from Sirach we hear, “Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.” It is that anger we harbor in our hearts that makes it so difficult to offer forgiveness. We hold a grudge, we feel slighted, we feel embarrassed, we feel disrespected, etc. These are the type of feelings that eat at our heart and disturb our peace and make it difficult and sometimes seemingly impossible to forgive an offender, or very often to forgive ourselves. The word of the Lord speaks into this anger. 

The author of Sirach offers sobering words: “Remember your last days, set enmity aside; remember death and decay, and cease from sin! Our response from Psalm 103 says “The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.” Jesus in the Gospel says that the wrath of the Father will come upon us “unless each of you forgives your brother (or sister) from your heart.” It seems that our receiving forgiveness is unconditional from God as long as we are prepared to offer that forgiveness unconditionally to our brothers and sisters who need that forgiveness from us. 

This is a good week to take some time to do an anger check. Is there anyone or any situation that in thinking about them stirs up feeling of anger in my heart? The Lord is inviting us to pause, reflect on his tremendous mercy and then extend that mercy from our heart to that person or situation. As we pray in the words that Jesus has taught us let us allow the Lord to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  

Bro. John

Original source can be found here.