A few weeks after the events of September 11, 2001, a local New England TV station interviewed the mother of a young woman killed in that terrorist attack. The woman was leaving the Catholic Church where the funeral Mass for her daughter had just been celebrated. A reporter approached her and her other grown children, stuck a microphone in her face and asked that time-honored, yet still idiotic question: “How do you feel?”One of the woman’s sons turned on the reporter and began to push him away when the woman reached out a hand and stopped him and said:
“No, it’s alright. I’ll answer his question. I’ll tell you how I feel. I’m filled with grief at losing my daughter in such a horrible way. I’m more angry than you can imagine at those who planned and carried out these senseless, murderous acts. And deep down I want revenge, pure unadulterated revenge.
“But then I remember I’m a Christian and I’ve just been to Mass to praise God for the gift of my daughter. Then I remember that Jesus forgave His killers as He hung on that Cross. Then I remember that we are called to forgive just as He forgives. And if I don’t forgive then I am no longer a Christian. I will never forget because I’m a mother who lost her child. But I have already forgiven them, all of them.”
She then turned and walked away.
Her comments were aired on the early evening news, but they were dropped from the late news. I suspect they weren’t what people wanted to hear.
"I forgive you." Hard words aren’t they? Perhaps the hardest thing we ever do -- this matter of forgiveness -- because it seems to grind against our deepest sensibilities.
Why forgive? Well, one reason is given to us in today's first reading: "Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight." Exactly so! How tightly we sinners grasp this refusal to forgive. We wait for the other person to make the first move, but where does reconciliation really begin? Maybe our answer to this question shows us why forgiveness is such a rare commodity in the world. A few years ago, waiting in the dentist’s office, I read a magazine article about a man on death row here in Florida. He had shot and killed a young policeman. Now I'm not going to address the Church’s teaching on capital punishment…at least not today. That's the subject of another homily on another Sunday.
No, what struck me were the words of the dead policeman's family. They had allowed a very natural grief to turn into something else: hatred that spawned a need for revenge. During the years of appeals, they were consumed by one goal: to witness the execution of the killer of their son. Any suggestion of forgiveness was quickly dismissed. It just seemed so very sad.
Now society certainly has the right and obligation to punish those who commit crimes. Jesus never instructed us to set criminals free unpunished. I recall the words of a theology professor of mine years ago, a Jesuit who had spent years brutalized in a Chinese Communist prison: "You punish crime; you forgive sin."And remember John Paul II tenderly holding the hand that held the gun, and forgiving his would-be assassin. But the Holy Father didn’t ask the Italian government to release him from prison.
In today’s gospel passage Jesus once again begins his teaching in response to a question, this time posed by Peter: "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive him? As many as seven times?"
Now, to a Jew, the number seven indicated completeness. So Peter no doubt thought he was being generous, and probably expected praise. But Jesus is unimpressed, and responds, "…not seven times, but seventy-seven times."
77 was also symbolic to the Jews, meaning unlimited. In other words, Jesus is telling Peter to place no limit on forgiveness. Is He serious? No limit to forgiveness? No point at which we are justified in saying, "Enough! I've had it up to here with you and your cruelty…or your lying…or your abuse"?
Well, we first must make a distinction between forgiveness and enabling. Forgiveness is not synonymous with stupidity. If someone is in a dangerous situation, to remain there is foolish and often only encourages continued bad behavior. And second, we must realize that forgiveness does not begin with us. It begins with God.
Alexander Pope, the great Catholic poet, summed it when he said: "To err is human; to forgive divine." Indeed, throughout the Old Testament, despite the unfaithfulness of His People, we encounter a God of love and forgiveness. For generation after generation, the prophets summoned the people of Israel to national repentance: for lies, injustice, violence, idolatry, slaughter of the innocent…acts that denied God and separated them from Him. Time and again, a loving, forgiving God reached out to them, for God never stops offering His love, asking only that we accept it and agree to love Him and each other in return.
That’s the good news in today’s gospel: if we accept God's terms, His spirit will move within us. Listen to God’s Word in Ezekiel: "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you." And from our 1st reading from the Book of Sirach: "Forgive your neighbor's injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven."You see, Jesus didn't tell us anything about forgiveness that God had not already told the people of Israel. But for us Christians, this message of love becomes incarnate in Jesus. It becomes inscribed in His very flesh. "For God so loved the world" that He gave the world – that’s you and me – not some avenging angel wielding a sword, but His own Son, "so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life."
Think of the forgiveness this involved. Recall today's parable. Believe me, it's important. Like the master in the parable, God has forgiven us a huge debt, a debt so enormous that we could never hope to repay it. It’s the debt that comes from sin, our sin, our separation from God. Nothing anyone else can do to us can remotely compare to that debt. Nothing we can forgive can compare with what we have been forgiven.
You see, brothers and sisters, it is our sin that brought about the suffering and death of God's only Son. To pay our debt, the Son of God was crucified. And what was His response? "Father, forgive them…" Is it any wonder that Jesus says we should place no limit on our willingness to forgive?
A few moments from now, we will join together and pray the prayer Jesus taught us; and we’ll utter the words: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." What does it mean for God to forgive me?
It doesn't mean He forgets what I’ve done. My sin is still a fact. It happened. It doesn't just go away. No, for God to forgive me is for God to change me. And when the priest, acting as an instrument of God's mercy, utters the words of absolution, I am changed. Through God's grace, at the very root of my being, I have a new relationship with God. My entire being becomes alive with the life of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit live within me. I become St. Paul's "new creation."
Only God can forgive like that – a forgiveness that tells the sinner he or she is now radically different, has been transformed. Only God can change hearts, but you and I can be God's instruments, bringing His forgiveness to the everyday incidents in our lives that threaten to tear us one from another.The harsh words spoken by husband or wife.
The stubborn streak that keeps me from taking the first step toward reconciliation.
The hardness of heart toward those who are hurtful toward me…whatever the issue.
The anger within me toward the obnoxious boss, or the driver who won’t move when the light changes, or the rude clerk at the local store, or the needy family member who demands so much, or the priest or deacon who didn’t listen to my problem.
With this forgiveness comes remarkable benefits. "If you forgive others," Jesus tells us, "your Heavenly Father will also forgive you." And for those we forgive, we can create paths for God's grace. Isn't this our Christian vocation? To be evangelists or, as St. Paul put it, ambassadors for Christ.
That’s what forgiveness is: carrying out the reconciling work of Jesus Christ. Without reconciliation with God, there’s no redemption, no salvation. And, yes, we are called to forgive terrorists, even as we demand justice for their crimes. Men and women are brought ever closer to God's saving Love only to the extent that we join Jesus on the Cross, link our arms with the crucified Christ and murmur, "Father forgive them…"
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