“Forgive from Your Heart” by Rev. Paul Berghout (@FatherPB)
Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 130
Piety
Anger and wrath, these also are abominations, yet a sinner holds on to them. The vengeful will face the Lord’s vengeance, for he keeps a strict account of their sins. Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray. Does anyone harbor anger against another and expect healing from the Lord? (Sirach 27:30-28:3)
We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end, Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. (Romans 14:7-9)
Then his Lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger, his Lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So, my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” Matthew 18:32-35)
Study
As a sought-after corporate motivational trainer, Brian Tracy does not typically take phone calls, but he took this one from a man who said that he had a testimony to share. Raised in a dysfunctional family, the man expressed his furious emotions toward his family and others. His marriage was terrible, his business partner cheated him, he lost all his money, and now he was quite sick.
He went to the doctor, and his doctor said bluntly, “You’re going to die. Your system is so shot; it’s just like a worn-out car, everything’s gone. You’ve got about six months to live, so you should make peace with whomever or whatever in your life because there’s nothing that modern medicine can do for you.” The doctor also said, “You might let a few people go. You’re still angry at so many people. Just let them go.”
The man walked out of there thinking that, yes, he had been so angry for so long. He made a list of 39 people with whom he was furious. He went through the list, and he said, “All right, I’m going to forgive them.”
One by one, he thought about how angry he had been with each of them, and he forgave them. “I forgive this person completely.” Some names were hard, but he went through the list and let them go, saying: “I’m going to have to call this person.” Or, “I’m going to have to visit this person.” For six months, he traveled around Europe, the United States and England to forgive people and ask for their forgiveness.
As he did this, his health got better, much better. By the end of six months, he had forgiven every single person that ever hurt him. “His mind, his soul, his heart, were completely clear. He had no negative feelings at all. He felt fabulous about himself, he had no pains, and he went back to the doctor. The doctor couldn’t believe it and said: “You are completely symptom-free.”
Meanwhile, the man resumed working, and he started earning more than he ever did.[i]
Our Gospel today teaches that forgiveness is releasing the offending person from the debt we feel they owe us because of what they have done. When we do that, we allow our negative feelings, thoughts, and behaviors to change gradually to positive ones; that is, we change internally. The Greek word for “forgiveness” is “aphienai,” meaning to “loose,” “let go,” “release,” or “omit.”
Whatever amends anyone owes you, it is infinitely less than what God has forgiven you for just one mortal sin.
“Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full,” both of the people in our Gospel today said the same thing.
And the Master responded to the unforgiving servant, “Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?”
Sirach 28 from our First Reading has the same message, which is: forgiving others is a condition for receiving God’s forgiveness. Refusing to forgive is a form of anger of which one will not let go. Our First Reading puts it as: “Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.”
Forgotten grace breeds unforgiving living.
Action
We can begin by praying for the willingness to forgive the person who hurt us. This disposition ultimately allows us to enter into Christ’s crucifixion with him so we can reinterpret emotionally charged memories by seeing them through a crucifix, which powers us to do something that we could never do under our own power.
The Catechism says that there is no offense, however severe, that God cannot forgive if one is honestly repentant. (982)
But we also must be prudent in how we love them. Because some of these people can be abusive, we might have to love them at a distance. Yet we never stop praying for them and forgiving them.
What grudges am I holding? Is there anyone that I have shut out of my life?
Amen.
(Note: This is the last homily that I will be emailing out for several months as I will be preaching mostly in Spanish, and I need to concentrate on Year II of Korean language studies where the homework is extensive. –Fr. PB.)
[i] Source: Tracy, Brian. The Science of Influence: How to Inspire Yourself and Others to Greatness (Gilman Media LLC, 2019).
No comments:
Post a Comment