TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
13 SEPTEMBER 2026
Peter
asks Jesus, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I
forgive? As many as seven times?” Peter thinks he is being generous about
offering forgiveness, because 7 is a biblical number meaning “a lot.” But Jesus shocks him by saying that he needs
to forgive him not seven times, but seventy-seven times. There is no limit to the times we need to
forgive.
His parable
explains the reason for unlimited forgiveness.
The king represents God. The
servant represents us. The servant owes
the king a huge amount. The Old
Testament has two primary metaphors for sin.
The first is that sin is a weight to be carried around. The second is that it is a debt that needs to
be paid. The servant carries a heavy weight
and has acquired a debt that needs to be repaid. Because of the power of sin, we can never
remove the weight of our sins or repay the debt we owe. God, represented by the king, removes the
weight from our shoulders and repays the debt through the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The king
treats the servant harshly when he refuses to forgive the much smaller debt of
a fellow servant. He hands him over to
torturers not because the other servant deserved to be freed of the weight of
his debt, but because the king himself had forgiven the servant’s debt. Jesus says that we are expected to do the
same – to forgive others by taking the weight from their shoulders and
forgiving their debts. We must treat others
with mercy, because God has forgiven us by lifting the weight from our
shoulders and erasing our debts.
This
message can be very difficult, especially for those who have suffered greatly
from the sins of others. Part of the
problem is that we do not fully understand the essence of mercy, forgiveness,
lifting weights from those who have hurt us, and letting go of their
debts. Forgiving another person does not
mean that the evil done by that person is ok.
Nor does forgiveness mean that we have to like the person who hurt us so
badly or even be part of their lives.
Especially for those who have been abused or who living in abusive
relationships, it is critical to move away from the offender and try to begin
life anew. Jesus calls us to take this
radical action, not because the offending person deserves it, but because of
what God has done for us.
Years ago,
I encouraged a woman to join the RCIA process in our parish. She had been away from the Church for many
years and wanted to resume the practice of her faith. As she participated in RCIA, she revealed the
deep hurt that caused her to walk away from the faith in the first place. When her five children were all under the age
of 10, her husband abandoned the family.
She was devastated and nursed her anger for years. Her children and grandchildren wanted her to
come back to the church, because she was so angry and short with them all the
time. I encouraged her to use the
Sacrament of Reconciliation, and she did.
Even though she confessed her anger and hatred often, that bitterness
remained. One day, as she was working on
her job at the local hospital, she saw her husband for the first time in
decades. As he was being wheeled into
the emergency room, she saw that he was in terrible health instead of having a
good life after abandoning her and their children. At last, she was able to let go of her anger
and be at peace. She finally realized
that her hatred and anger had no effect on him.
Instead, she had become a bitter mother, grandmother, and friend.
We forgive
others only because God has forgiven us.
I’m also convinced that one of the graces of the Sacrament of
Reconciliation is the courage to offer that mercy to others. I have also learned that this kind of radical
forgiveness cannot be accomplished by us alone.
At a certain point, we need to
humble ourselves and go through professional therapy to be healed. We need the grace and mercy of God to forgive
as Jesus has forgiven us.
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