24th Sunday Year A - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2023

There is no  doubt what the topic of today’s Gospel passage is about — forgiveness. More even than that — unlimited forgiveness. It is absolutely clear also that Jesus wished that his message be taken extremely seriously. However, it seems that the early Church, in its perhaps immature, though eager, taking Jesus’ lesson on board, got some things mixed up. The super-generous king of the first part of the story finished up falling far short of Jesus’ insistence on forgiving the metaphorical “seventy-seven” times sinner, finally resorting even to torturing the utterly insolvent debtor. However, the point of the story is clear enough.

Why the absolute insistence on forgiveness on Jesus’ part? 

Forgiveness is simply the shape that love takes in a context of hurt, especially deep hurt. They are the same thing. Forgiveness is love, and love is the experience of salvation, and salvation is nothing less than the experience of life, life to the full. Jesus was himself so convinced of its necessity [and beauty, might I add] that he freely forgave everyone complicit in his murder, as he struggled even to breathe while dying his tortured death on the cross. 

But when we talk about forgiveness, we need to be careful. For a start, its meaning is often misunderstood. Feelings of hostility, of anger and resentment, even quite deep feelings, are usually inevitable. Their hurts can leave deep scars. Their psychological effects can be quite traumatic, so deep that they simply cannot be forgotten, nor, in many cases, should they be.

I hope that we have all become wiser because of the relentless publicity given of recent years to child sexual abuse and the danger of seeking to keep it covered up. Sadly, it seems that many of us in the Church have still a lot to learn or at least to choose to admit in this regard. Lately, more women are finding the courage to make public their experience of past abuse.

Forgiveness does not deal with feelings. Beyond feelings, and in the midst of feelings, forgiveness is a decision. It governs how we decide to act in response to the guilty one. It falls short of reconciliation, though it can lead on to it. It is based on recognition of the radical, deep, ultimately God-given, human dignity that we disciples of Jesus believe God gives to everyone — that is not necessarily obvious, often even to the guilty one. Forgiveness is a deliberate decision, based on an act of faith. Even for the willing, to act on it can require frequent practice over time. 

I believe that forgiveness can be impossible at times for some. It involves a free choice to love; and to even want and to be capable of loving seems to be rooted in people’s early experience. Over the years I have come across some people whose early childhood has been truly horrific, and who have had no personal experience of ever having been loved. I wonder if they will ever be able to love.

Yet, having said all this, for most of us, loving is possible. 

Personally, I was blessed to have been loved wonderfully as a young child; and that early experience has opened me up in my own halting way to want to love others. I think I know what Jesus was driving at.

In one of his Letters, St Paul listed off a series of attitudes, that the Church has afterwards come to call the “Fruits of the Holy Spirit”. I think they could also be called, among other things, and perhaps with an opportunity  for a better choice of English words, the “fruits of forgiving”. I shall list them off slowly: love, joy, peace, patience, graciousness, goodness, trust, humility and self-discipline. Each one rewards gentle reflection. To personally experience each, singly or in combination, is beautiful.