It doesn't take a miracle to forgive

Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Peter’s suggestion of forgiveness being offered seven times would have already been regarded as generous by any standard. In most of our own experiences, twice is the limit. You may recall the proverb, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Forgiving the same offence twice only exposes my gullibility and foolishness. But then our Lord issues an answer that takes it beyond Peter’s magnanimity: “Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.”

The number seven, as many of you know, symbolises completeness. For the Jews, the seventh day was the Sabbath day when they ceased from menial work and recalled what the Lord had done for them in creation and in rescuing them from slavery. The seventh year was a special year of favour to the Lord and the seventh multiple of this period, served as the great jubilee where debts were forgiven, slaves were released and property which were taken were returned. But how about seventy times seven? Was it just merely repeating the above theme and giving it a superlative twist by multiplying it even further?

We turn to Chapter 9 in the Book of Daniel for an answer. The context of this book is the period of Babylonian captivity and exile. Daniel was studying the book of Jeremiah’s prophecies when he came upon the prophecy that Israel would be released from captivity after 70 years. The 70th year of exile was coming, and so Daniel began fasting in sackcloth and ashes, and he began confessing the sins of Israel and pleading with the Lord to hear and restore Israel. While he was praying, the angel Gabriel appeared and told him that the Lord had decreed “70 weeks.” Another period of 70 was going to follow the 70 years of exile in Babylon, and, Gabriel told Daniel, at the end of that 70-week period, that period of 70 x 7, the Lord would finally take care of sin. After 70 x 7, the Lord would “finish transgression, make an end of sin, make atonement for iniquity, bring in everlasting righteousness, seal of vision and prophecy, anoint the most holy” (v. 24). You could just imagine Daniel’s disappointment when nothing happened at the end of this period.

By the time of our Lord Jesus, this prophecy was an obsession for many Jews. From weeks, the fulfilment of the prophecy stretched on for years, and then decades and thereafter, centuries. From the time of Daniel to the Messiah, there would be 70 x 7, not weeks but years, to the Messiah was predicted to come after 490 years. The anticipation of the arrival of the Messiah was heightened by what he was expected to do - he would deal with Israel’s transgressions once and for all. At the end of the 70 x 7 period, there would be a great Jubilee, a release from debt, a manumission of slaves, a return to the land. This would be the fulfillment of the hopes of all faithful Israelites.

Forgiveness often seems … often “feels” … impossible to most of us, especially when we equate forgiveness as no longer remembering the hurt or feeling the sting of the offence. We often feel that if we still feel hurt or upset about an offence that perhaps we haven’t forgiven the offender. Or, that it is somehow unforgiving to hold the offender responsible for healing the wound they caused or fixing the damage they have done. We feel that unless we are ready to give them a free pass and choose to never bring up the issue again, we haven’t really forgiven them. But is this what real forgiveness looks like? You may be surprised to know, happily surprised, I may add, that forgiveness isn’t as hard or as impossible as you think. All of these mistaken beliefs and unreasonable expectations placed on us actually make forgiveness feel like a bigger burden than it’s meant to be.

St Augustine taught that forgiveness simply involved the willingness to surrender one’s natural right to revenge. When you stop wanting to hurt someone for having hurt you, when you choose not to strike back when you are struck or don’t want bad things to happen to them because they hurt you, you have forgiven them. That’s really all forgiveness requires. Easy right? Some of you may protest - easier said than done. Granted, sometimes, that’s hard enough. But the truth is that God doesn’t expect the impossible from us unless He chooses to give us the grace to do what is impossible. You may think that requires a miracle. The good news is that you don’t need a miracle to forgive. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “It is not in our power to not feel or to forget an offence; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming hurt into intercession” (No. 2843).

It is possible to forgive someone — that is, to refuse to wish or inflict pain or insult on them for having hurt you — and still feel pain or anger, or a host of other feelings. It is likewise possible to forgive the offender but still need them to make things right in some way. Forgiveness is a function of love. To love someone is to work for their good. Letting people do bad things without requiring them to learn from their mistakes and heal the damage they have done is not working for their good. It is not love. It is aiding and abetting the offence, the sin. It is keeping the person locked in his or her sin.

Alright, now that you understand that forgiveness is possible, how about reconciliation? The truth is that reconciliation can only happen when there is mutual commitment on the parts of both the injured party and the offender to make things right again. Forgiveness is always possible, but reconciliation is never guaranteed. You need both hands to clap. Forgiveness allows the offended person to extend the invitation to reconciliation, but it is up to the offender whether they are willing to accept that invitation or not. Reconciliation is a gift two people give to each other by committing to the process of healing the damage that was done and for reconciliation to occur, the offender needs to be able to do three things: feel it, own it, fix it. So, even if the other person doesn’t feel your hurt, or refuses to admit his or her fault and therefore, see no obligation in fixing the issue, you can still offer forgiveness to that person which is ironically a gift to yourself because you can now move on in freedom.

Ultimately, forgiveness is not just making things right with our neighbour. It is also making things right with God. Pope Benedict XIV reminds us that “We cannot communicate with the Lord if we do not communicate with one another. If we want to present ourselves to him, we must also take a step towards meeting one another. To do this we must learn the great lesson of forgiveness: We must not let the gnawing of resentment work in our soul, but must open our hearts to the magnanimity of listening to others, open our hearts to understanding them, eventually accepting their apologies, to generously offering our own.”