Gospel: Matthew 18:21-19:1
Peter
approached Jesus and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often
must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not
seven times but seventy-seven times. That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be
likened to a king who decided to settle accounts with his servants. When he
began the accounting, a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge
amount. Since he had no way of paying it back, his master ordered him to be
sold, along with his wife, his children, and all his property, in payment of
the debt. At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said, ‘Be patient
with me, and I will pay you back in full.’ Moved with compassion the master of
that servant let him go and forgave him the loan. When that servant had left,
he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a much smaller amount. He
seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’ Falling
to his knees, his fellow servant begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will
pay you back.’ But he refused. Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison
until he paid back the debt. Now when his fellow servants saw what had
happened, they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master and reported the
whole affair. His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I
forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had
pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ Then in anger his master
handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt. So
will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from
his heart.”
When
Jesus finished these words, he left Galilee and went to the district of Judea
across the Jordan.
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Reflection:
What will
happen to us if we are forgiving? We feel light, free and there’s no pent-up
emotions in our hearts that makes life so heavy for us. What will happen to us if we don’t forgive? There’s
always a heavy burden in our hearts that does nothing to us except to attract
negative emotions even sickness.
Take for example if we see someone who has
wronged us which we have not forgiven yet. Our face may turn red an indication
of sudden surge of our blood pressure that may become fatal and could result to
other health complications.
Therefore
it’s always better to be forgiving; this doesn’t mean that when we forgive we
forget the lesson/s why we forgave. When we forgive those who’ve wronged us we
let bygones be bygones yet the lesson/s learned will remain for this will help
us grow and become better individuals.
In our
gospel for today Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how
often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to
you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. In simple terms Jesus is teaching
us that we must always be forgiving no matter how severe the injury done to us.
Because when we don’t forgive we only imprison ourselves to this vicious and
injurious emotion called hatred.
But let
us say we really can’t forgive, let us go down on our knees and pray to Jesus
and let us ask Him to heal us and give us the grace of forgiveness. – Marino J.
Dasmarinas
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