24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Fr Dominic’s Homily

“He seized him and started to choke him, demanding, ‘Pay back what you owe.’” It shows what we are all capable of if we let ourselves.

Ten thousand talents is a lot of money. 1 talent is 2 million pounds in today’s money. So it is billions.. In other words an amount that is impossible to repay.

Remember that God is infinitely good. So when we offend him with our sin we set up an infinite chasm between him and us. Only God can heal this wound. So in the same way he wants us to show a measure of infinity towards our brothers and sisters. He wants us to emulate his love and mercy.

In the Our Father it tells us “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” How many times do we need to do this? 77 times apparently. Does this mean that we keep an account of all the hurts we have received from everyone around us? When it reaches 76 we can think – at last. Payback time is coming!! No.

Surely this concept is counter cultural! However St Catherine of Siena says that the very reason why God puts us in communities of others is precisely to learn how to love like him. To emulate his mercy.

You might say that this is all very well. But the pain that someone has hurt me with is too much to forgive. It’s not possible. Well to answer this we see a lovely passage in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. (Which has answers to all areas of our faith.)

In passage 2843 is says “It is not in our power not to feel or forget an offence. But if we offer it to the Holy Spirit then we can turn injury into compassion and purify our memory.”

In other words we are only human. We feel hurt and we remember the pain. But if we choose to offer it to God then the pain is transformed and even the memory is changed. If we can’t forgive the person then if we pray for them God can bring healing.

Remember that we are not called to like everyone. But we are called to love them and there is a difference. One is a feeling and the other is a choice. And when we act in this way we actually bring peace and joy to our own hearts.

Forgiveness is powerful in the way it frees and heals our own hearts. If we choose not to forgive someone, we enable that person to have an attachment to us. The sin against us that we cannot seem to forgive remains. We are being held captive by our anger and hurt.

St. John Paul II said, “Forgiveness is the restoration of freedom to oneself; it is the key held in our own hand to our prison cell.” When we choose to forgive, be it seven times or seventy times seven times, we free the other person and ourselves from the pain of sin, anger, and hurt.

Remember that when you forgive someone it takes a twofold process. We first decide to forgive with our minds and then at some point our hearts catch up. It’s part of the healing process. It may take some time for our hearts to catch up with what our minds have decided. But that’s ok.

So just because we don’t immediately feel the forgiveness in our hearts that doesn’t mean that we haven’t forgiven them. It’s a decision more than a feeling.

Life consists of a series of letting goes. This is especially true of the spiritual life. In order to gain everything first we must let go of everything. That includes even our own point of view from time to time.

Remember when Peter had been fishing all night and caught nothing? Then Jesus tells him to go out again and put the nets out on the other side.

To Peter this makes absolutely no sense at all. He is a professional fisherman taking advice from a carpenter. Night time is the best time to fish. It’s totally crazy and ludicrous. But he obeys - because Jesus is telling him to. And what happens? An abundance of fruitfulness!

Jesus is telling us today to forgive without reserve. A crazy notion. Totally irrational in the eyes of the world. But given who is saying it we must listen. Because the paradox is that it is in fact us who are becoming healed to the degree that we try to heal others.