20 — FORGIVENESS

XXI Sunday after Pentecost

Presence of God. — O Lord, teach me to forgive generously and be lavish with your forgiveness toward me.

Meditation

1 — “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.” Today’s Gospel (Mt. 18:23-35) alludes to the account that one day all of us will be called to render; a grave thought that leads us to reflect, as last Sunday, on the state of our conscience. Yet, as we continue reading the parable, the heart is comforted: God, represented under the figure of the king, shows himself so good, so merciful and compassionate toward the poor servant who cannot pay his debt: he forgives him everything and lets him go free.

That servant’s debt was no small thing: ten thousand talents. But our debts toward God are far greater; they are not calculated in money, nor in silver, nor in gold, but according to the price of our ransom, the most precious Blood of Jesus. Our debts are our sins, which needed to be washed by the Blood of a God. Debts that, in one form or another and despite good will, we increase every day, if only through falls of fragility and weakness. Who at the end of the day can say he has contracted no new debts with God? If at the end of life God were to place before us the exact account of our deficit, we would find ourselves in a far more embarrassing position than the servant in the parable. But God is infinite goodness. He knows and pities our misery, and every time we present ourselves humbled before him, acknowledging our faults, he immediately forgives us and absolves us of every debt. God is magnificent in his forgiveness: he does not reproach us for sins already wept over, nor does he keep any account of them; his forgiveness is so great, so full, that it not only cancels debts but even destroys their memory, as though they had never existed. It is enough for him to see us repentant, and every wound, even the most gangrenous and repulsive, is healed and destroyed by the most precious Blood of Jesus. The Blood of Christ is like an infinite sea with power to wash away and destroy the sins of all humanity, provided they are sincerely detested. Every day, every moment, we can take the burden - lighter or heavier - of our faults and infidelities and make it disappear in this ocean of grace and love, certain that no trace of it will remain.

2 — The second part of the parable speaks of our forgiveness. Returning home, that fortunate servant, who had been released from all debt, meets a fellow servant who owed him one hundred denarii, a truly tiny sum compared with the ten thousand talents forgiven to him. Yet he, who had been treated with such pity, shows none to his fellow servant; he listens neither to pleas nor to tears, but instead “went and cast him into prison till he should pay the debt.”

Whereas a little earlier we were moved by the master’s goodness, now we are indignant at the servant’s cruelty. And yet, though blushing, we must acknowledge that just as the master’s goodness is the image of God’s mercy, always ready to forgive, so the servant’s cruelty is the image of our hardness, our stinginess in forgiving our neighbor. Sadly, it is exactly so: we who need God’s forgiveness more than our daily bread are so hard, so exacting toward others, so difficult to move to indulgence and pardon. What are the debts our neighbor may have toward us compared with those we have toward God? Certainly infinitely less than a few denarii compared with ten thousand talents, since it is an offense done to a miserable creature compared with offense against the infinite majesty of God. But here is the contrast: God forgives, forgets, and entirely cancels our grave debts, nor does he cease loving us and doing us good despite our continual infidelities; we, instead, only with great effort manage to forgive some small wrong, and even when forgiving, we do not know how to forget entirely, so that, when occasion presents itself, we are ready to reproach the offender with it. And what would it be if our neighbor committed every day toward us as many infidelities and discourtesies as we commit toward God? Oh, how poor and narrow our forgiveness is!

The parable recounts the punishment the master inflicted on the cruel servant: “And his lord, being angry, delivered him to the torturers till he should pay all the debt”; then comes the conclusion: “So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from his heart.” If we want God to be lavish with us in his forgiveness, we must be lavish with ours toward our neighbor; in the measure in which we forgive, we shall be forgiven. Which is to say that we ourselves give God the exact measure of the mercy he must use toward us.

Colloquy

“Who is there, O Lord, who is not your debtor? Who is there who does not have some brother as debtor? Therefore in your justice you established that your rule of conduct toward me, your debtor, would be the one followed by me toward those who are debtors to me. Therefore, since I too have sinned - and how much! - I must be indulgent toward the one who asks my forgiveness. Indeed, the moment of prayer will come and then I shall have to say to you: ‘Forgive me, O Lord, my debts.’ And how? The condition is set by me, I myself establish the law: ‘forgive as I forgive.’

“Two brief sentences, O Lord, you had written in the Gospel: ‘forgive and it shall be given to you.’ Here is my prayer: I ask pardon from you for my sinning, and you want there to be someone whom I forgive.

“As the poor man begs bread from me, so I am your little poor one standing at the door of the father of the household; indeed I prostrate myself there, supplicating with groans, desiring to receive something - and that something is You. The poor asks me for bread, and what do I ask from you, if not yourself, who said: ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven’?

“To obtain forgiveness, I will forgive; I will remit to others, and it shall be remitted to me; desiring to receive, I will give, and it shall be given to me.

“Is it hard for me to forgive one who offends me? I will have recourse to prayer. Instead of returning insult for insult, I will pray for the one who insults me. When I feel like answering him harshly, I will speak to you, Lord, on his behalf. Then I will remember that you promise eternal life, but command that I forgive my brother. It is as if you were saying to me: ‘You who are man, forgive another man, so that I, who am God, may come to you’” (St. Augustine).