Gospel: Matthew 18:21-35
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 him 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 your brother from your heart.”
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Reflection:
The story is told about an unforgiving man who would always harbor
resentment towards those who have hurt him. Be unforgiving was always his
attitude towards those who did him wrong until he had a heart attack. After he
recovered from his sickness he decided not to keep any resentment anymore and
he subsequently felt like a bird freed from a cage.
Is it normal for us to harbor resentment/anger? Yes of course for we are
humans with emotions. But we must not let our anger/resentment control us by
allowing it safe harbor in our hearts for so long. Therefore, after that moment
wherein we let our feeling of resentment control us let us quickly allow Jesus’
teaching on forgiveness to take over our selfish and destructive
feelings.
In the gospel Peter asked Jesus, "Lord, if my brother sins against
me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times?" Jesus
answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times (Matthew 18:21-22).
This is a very simple yet very effective teaching about forgiveness for us
from Jesus. In other words The Lord is saying to us that we should always be
forgiving. It’s normal for us to be hurt but let us not allow these hurtful
feelings to control and to wound us permanently. Hence, we can only be freed
from the vicious control of anger which by the way comes from the devil, if we
forgive those who have hurt us.
What if we don’t forgive? We are only hurting ourselves if we don’t
forgive and we only put ourselves in an invisible prison cell called
unforgiveness. And then this unforgiveness will sooner or later bring us down
until we self-destruct.
What if we follow Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness, how would we feel? We feel light and free and we have no burden
in our hearts. Don’t we all want to feel light, to feel free and without any
burdens and hurtful feelings in our hearts?
There are two options before us: To follow Jesus’ teaching on
infinite forgiveness or we continue to punish and burden ourselves by
unforgiveness. The wisdom filled choice is to follow Jesus’ teaching. – Marino
J. Dasmarinas
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