As We Forgive Them
There’s something our Lord told us that most people just don’t seem to get. It’s a hidden gem almost hidden in his words, and we skim over them without thinking. We need to take a closer look at that line where our Lord tells us that after loving God, the second most important law there is, is that of loving our neighbor. Not just loving our neighbor, mind you, but loving our neighbor as ourselves.
You and I know very well that we all have no trouble at all loving ourselves. It’s engrained in our fallen human nature to provide ourselves with every possible creature comfort we can afford, every pleasure we can devise—all supposedly in the pursuit of happiness. It’s quite normal to want to be happy, but perfect happiness can never be found in the natural pleasures of this life. Any joys we have here are transitory and fleeting, mere tastes of the spiritual and eternal joy that the next life offers. Perfect happiness in this life is unachievable, and yet so often, we devote our entire lives trying to make it happen, often to the point of defying God’s law. Thus, this constant grasping at pleasures and material riches can ultimately rob us of the eternal happiness we should be seeking. And yet, we never stop! We love ourselves with a profound and burning passion, and nothing must be allowed to prevent us from getting what we want!
If only, says our Lord, we could love our neighbor to this same extent. If only we could seek our neighbor’s happiness with the same zeal as our own. We do our best to love our neighbors, sure. But it’s a different kind of love than the one we reserve for “me”. Take today’s Gospel, for instance. The steward wants a better life, so he steals from his master. He “borrows” from him out of the money he’s supposed to be looking after, probably with no intention of paying him back. He doesn’t really care so long as he has the money to buy nice things for himself. Eventually, he’s caught in his embezzlement scheme, and his master now stands ready to exact justice. “Mercy, mercy,” cries the steward, and his lord takes pity on him and forgives his debt.
It’s a parable. It’s meant to illustrate what we do in real life. We commit sin against God. One simple sin is an infinite offence against the infinite Supreme Being, and we can never pay back even just this one venial sin. How much do we owe God for an offence that is infinite? What is the greatest thing we possess with which we can repay him? We owe God our soul! Justice demands that we spend an infinite time in hell, making satisfaction for this infinite offence. Once we realize this, we cry out to God, “Mercy, mercy! Kyrie eleison, Lord, have pity on us!” And the good Lord does show us compassion and allows his priest to absolve us from the debt so that we can go in peace and “sin no more.”
Meanwhile this steward in the Gospel treats his lord’s loving kindness with contempt. He goes back to his fellow servants who owe him money and refuses to show the same compassion that he had just received. Instead he violently attacks them, trying to force them into repaying their debt. And isn’t that the same thing we do? We leave the confessional with our sins all nicely forgiven and then we go home with all the same grudges against those who have given us a hard time. We just don’t seem to be able, do we, to forgive anyone who has dared interfere with our natural happiness. It doesn’t matter how they’ve trespassed against us, but trespass they most certainly have and that is something we harbor in our heart, longing to wreak vengeance or at least make life a tad more miserable for those who have trespassed against us. It started when we were children. Did our parents dare to correct us, or to deny us something we want? Time to teach them a lesson by sulking or yelling, maybe even a good old temper tantrum! We lash out at those who aren’t nice to us, who don’t give us everything we want. It’s natural, but that doesn’t mean it’s good. Human nature, let’s remember has been corrupted by the sin of Adam. And this behavior doesn’t end with childhood, especially if parents fail to educate their children properly. As adults we just become better at finding ways to get back at people who stand in the way of our flighty desires. It doesn’t matter who it is or how bad the offence. Whether it’s road rage against a perfect stranger or whether it’s a spouse who doesn’t treat us as we would wish, we react with this misplaced desire to seek revenge. We might wish an accident on the guy who cuts us off on the road, we might deliberately gossip and damage the reputation of an annoying acquaintance at work, we might try to get even with our spouse by being sullen, withdrawn, argumentative or even violent. It could be something trivial or it could be a devastating betrayal of all we hold dear, but suddenly even our closest neighbor is an enemy and our love turns to hate. It’s all part of this same refusal to love our neighbor as ourselves. We’re very quick to ask for God’s mercy, and yet so reluctant to show the same mercy on those who offend us. We don’t want to go to hell for our crimes, and yet we don’t seem to care if we make other people suffer a living hell for what they’ve done to us.
Today’s parable is a very easy lesson to understand. But it’s not so easy to learn it and to live it. Every day we say umpteen Our Fathers, with the words spewing from our thoughtless tongues, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.” What a hypocritical generation we have become when we pray these words and then go forth and devise new vicious ways to make our enemies pay their debt! Do we not realize that God will forgive us ONLY to the extent that we forgive others? Our Lord plainly told us that he would send to hell those who did not feed the hungry, or clothe the naked, or give shelter to the homeless. Why? Because as we do unto the least of his brethren, so we do unto him. And by refusing to love our neighbor we’re refusing to love God. And if we fail to show forgiveness to those who offend us, we should not expect anything else from the all-just God who alone is able to forgive our offences. It’s a simple lesson today, to be sure. But we must put it into practice or we’re in for some unpleasant surprises in the next life.
Let’s take a leaf out of our blessed Lady’s book. Look at the offences she had to endure when she witnessed the sufferings of her Son on Good Friday. But despite these terrible assaults against her and her Son, even two thousand years later, she is still holding back her Son’s righteous anger and pleading with him on behalf of the world’s sinners, always asking him to give us one more chance. La Salette, Fatima, Garabandal—time and again she warns us, pleading with us that we may say her Rosary and turn back to her Son who wants nothing more than to lead all souls to heaven. But time is finally running out as our atrocities have become so great. It has become imperative to learn from our blessed Lady’s example to pray for those who hurt us, to forgive them that trespass against us, to love our neighbor as ourselves. Do as she did. Do as she would have us do.