By Deacon Richard Hay
“Forgiveness”
Many of you may have seen the Milky Way candy bar commercial that shows a series of mishaps including a couch being dropped on top of someone, a very crooked white line on a road causing traffic issues, and a “No Regrets” tattoo that much to the shock of the man being tattooed is spelled incorrectly and reads “No Regerts”.
After each mishap the offending individual says “Sorry, I was eating a Milky Way” to excuse their behavior and responsibility for the incident.
Now a made for TV commercial is nothing like real life – they are intended to grab our attention about the product.
However, with that said, there are times we often quickly offer ”Sorry” for something like bumping into someone in the grocery store, or stepping on someone’s toe, or maybe dropping a glass and breaking it.
In those situations, that quick “sorry” is not so much asking for forgiveness but rather “excuse me” and is appropriate in most situations like that, but what about those times that involve much bigger needs for forgiveness in our relationships with family, friends, co-workers, or even God?
Is a quick sorry the right response?
Well, in today’s gospel, we hear Peter ask Jesus about how often to forgive someone. To understand the scope of Jesus’s response to Peter, we need to understand the teachings of the day when it comes to forgiving others.
I learned this week that many Jewish scholars have said that in Jesus’s day, the acceptable number of times to forgive someone for the same thing was three times. So, when we hear Peter ask Jesus about how often he should forgive his brother, he adds on a second part to the question to ask if it should be “as many as seven times?” There is even a different translation that says it is seventy times seven.
Basically, Peter more than doubles the expectation of the day. He was trying to be very generous as he asked this question to the Lord.
The Lord’s response probably caught Peter and everyone else off guard when he said:
“I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.”
That is of course an astronomical number of times in Jesus’s day compared to the expected norm of just three times.
The lesson from Jesus that we can take away is that forgiveness should not have any bounds – no limits. That is how vast our forgiveness is supposed to be in the eyes of the Lord.
Think about the cross and the sacrifice Jesus made for us. It is why he became man – to shed His blood on the cross to forgive our sins. The ultimate display of forgiveness, love, and salvation. That is our example to try and follow.
We have also have many other examples of what is expected of us when it comes to forgiveness.
In the Lord’s Prayer we pray “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In other words, we must forgive others to receive forgiveness.
During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reminds those gathered with him that if they are bringing a gift to the altar and then remember that their brother has something against them – then Jesus said they should leave the gift at the altar – abandon their own offering for forgiveness – and go to be reconciled with their brother first.
Reconciliation with their brother was necessary before seeking forgiveness for themselves. Another reminder for all of us…
Of course, we all know the unconditional love of the father in the story of the Prodigal Son. The first words out of the wayward son’s mouth as he comes home from squandering his inheritance, was “Father, I have sinned against heaven and you.” He asked for forgiveness for his actions against his father and was granted that through his father’s unconditional love – just like the forgiveness we receive from our Father in heaven.
St. John Paul II, while riding to the hospital in an ambulance after an assassination attempt in St. Peters Square, is said to have commented that he had already forgiven the shooter. A couple of years later, he went to the prison where his would-be assassin was being held and forgave him face to face.
From our own parish and diocese, we have a beautiful example of forgiveness in Fr. Rene Robert. Some of you may remember him when he was an associate here at Sacred Heart. He was also active at the school for the deaf and the blind in St. Augustine.
He was tragically kidnapped and murdered seven years ago by someone he was trying to help. A letter Fr. Rene left behind made it clear that his wishes were that if something like this was to happen to him, that he did not want the death penalty sought out by the courts. Imagine being prepared to forgive the actions of someone for such a transgression even before it ever happened.
For us – forgiveness must come from our hearts – it must come from our inner most being – forgiveness is not an intellectual activity otherwise it becomes just a quick “sorry” with no substance.
We should also remember that forgiving someone is not the same as excusing behavior – it simply means we sincerely offer forgiveness to the other person – no conditions – no blame – no expectations – just forgiveness.
Our forgiveness is also not tied to the other person accepting it – they may not yet be in a place where they can do that – but we offer our forgiveness anyway and pray for them.
Our homework for this week is to reflect on the forgiveness we have received from the Lord and others. Offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the blessings that come from that forgiveness. Forgiveness is not easy, and we should always be grateful when it is received.
Remember – forgive others so that our Lord in heaven may then forgive us.
