Thoughts & Homilies

Forgiveness
September 15, 2002

Homily
"You must forgive, not 7 times, but 77 times"
" Each of you must forgive your brother from your heart"

Easier said than done!

The obligation to forgive has been ingrained in our hearts and minds from our youth.
We have all heard sermons about it.
It's at the heart of the Lord's Prayer.
Every time we recite the Our Father we ask God to forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Every Christian congregation is full of people who know they should forgive, who can even recognize intellectually that there is a certain positive value in letting go of past hurts.

But all this does not make the act of forgiveness automatic or easy.

We've all seen or heard of outstanding examples of forgiveness.
Jesus on the cross said,
"Father forgive them for they know not what they do."
He said this as they nailed him to a cross, mocked and spit on him and watched him die in excruciating pain.
Similarly Saint Stephen, the first martyr, forgave those who stoned him to death for his faith in Christ.
Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch mystic who hid Jews in her home in World War II, was turned in by neighbors, sent to a concentration camp herself along with her father and sister who died there.
Corrie maintained her faith and even conducted clandestine Bible study for fellow prisoners. Her barracks became known as
"the crazy place where they hope."
After her release, she spent the rest of her life telling as many people as possible about the love and forgiveness of God.
She even opened a rehab center for former Nazis.
Once while giving a talk in Munich, she recognized in the audience one of the prison guards she'd known at Ravenstock. He was now a convert to Christ and he reached out his hand to her. She prayed for grace and strength and was able to forgive and embrace him.
No less dramatic is the example set by Pope John Paul II,
who went to the prison cell of Ali Agca to forgive, Ali Agca, the man who had only months before tried to take the Pope's life.
A picture of the two of them is in our reconciliation chapel.
I encourage you to look at it.

There are many other remarkable examples of forgiveness -
Reginald Denny from Los Angeles riots, Cardinal Bernadine and so many others - memorable acts of forgiveness.

And yet we still find it so hard to forgive those who've hurt us,
those who have betrayed us or let us down,
those who are indifferent to us,
those who've crippled our lives or smeared our reputation, those who have doubted us, or accused us,
preferred others to us, denied us,
or just walked away and out of our lives.

What we must understand about forgiveness is
that it is not a once and for all act on our part.
It is a process.
It requires faith, effort, determination and time.
And as Jesus tells us in this Gospel, it helps to remember how often and how much God has forgiven us, and how often we have needed the forgiveness of one another.
These readings come to us at the end of a week long observance of the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks on our nation.
These acts of violence caused so much suffering and death.
Many people are still in great emotional and physical pain in the aftermath.
"You must put enmity aside." Says Sirach in our first reading.
"You must forgive your brother from your hearts."
says Jesus in the Gospel.

How are we doing with that?

How is it even remotely possible
to forgive such senseless, diabolical acts?

It isn't.
It is possible to forgive only with God's help.
Jesus not only taught us to forgive, he showed us how.
More than that, he has sent us his own Spirit
to give us power to do what he has done.
We must not trivialize the suffering, the anguish and the pain of anyone who is deeply hurt.
Neither must we trivialize the call to forgiveness by saying
"it's too hard" or unbearable.
O course it is -
without the help of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.
The message to forgive - even our enemies - is counter cultural,
but it is at the heart of the life we are called to live as Christians.
The world desperately needs this message in order to be restored, healed and made whole.
We've seen what hatred and revenge can do.
The Church has no choice but to proclaim to the world
what Christ proclaimed to us.

If you find the message troubling, don't take it up with me.
Take it up with the Lord.

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