“Having forgiveness as an essential ingredient in our living together!”

(Based on Dan 3:25, 34-43 and Mt 18:21-35 – Tuesday of the 3rd Week in Lent)

Mary and Susan – neighbours – had a heated argument over some issue about their backyard fence.

The next day, Susan however, found Mary knocking on her door…
… with a plate of freshly baked cookies.

Bewildered, Susan asked, “I thought, the way we fought yesterday, we were done!”

Mary chuckled, as she handed over the cookies, and said, “As neighbours, I realised…
… that forgiveness always needs to be an essential ingredient, in our living together!”

How about us?

Is forgiveness an essential ingredient in our living together?

The Gospel of the Day is an exhibition of this aspect of the Lord going beyond all boundaries…
… in dealing with the beautiful virtue of forgiveness.

The passage begins with the Lord’s chief and one-of-the-first apostles Peter, raising a query to his Master, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (Mt 18: 21)

It was probably a genuine doubt of Peter, which arose from his own personal experiences.

He must have had some difficulties in forgiving, out of his wavering temperament, perhaps!

But he now puts forward to Jesus a doubt as to what should be the limit of one’s forgiveness.

Peter sought to know the exact boundaries that one must limit oneself, while forgiving.

He wanted clear-cut rules to define the maximum threshold and frontiers of generosity in pardoning.

But the Lord replies firmly, “I say to you, not seven times, but seventy seven times” (Mt 18:22)

The Lord does away with the mathematical rules in forgiveness!

“Seventy seven times” would refer a number, unlimited and uncountable!

The frontiers for how many times to forgive are done away with…!

As the Lord spoke these words to Peter, the apostle would himself have recalled…
“Once beside the sea of Galilee, when I encountered the Holy Master, I realized that I was drowning in the waters of sin… and I had asked pardon from the Lord.

Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man (Lk 5:8)”

These words of the Lord would have again echoed in the ears of Peter, later on, after the resurrection of Jesus….

Once again, beside a Sea… this time, the Sea of Tiberius, Peter experienced the forgiving power of the Lord in accepting back, though he had betrayed Him three times (Jn 21: 15-18)

Many times he had sinned against the Lord…

Many times he had caused pain and ache to the Lord…
But every time, the Lord forgave, wholeheartedly!

The Lord was truly the Master, “who practised what He preached”

This Lord, today seeks to impress on us too, this same attitude of forgiveness.

The teaching on forgiveness, is most certainly easy said than done!

To forgive… especially to forgive repeatedly…
… is certainly no easy task!

But it would require a deeper experience of the unconditional Love of the Lord and our own determination…
… along with His Grace, to reach out in forgiveness and pardon to our constantly erring brothers and sisters!

Let’s learn to “have forgiveness an essential ingredient in our living together!”

God Bless! Live Jesus!

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📖 Discovering the beauty of the Catholic Church through the Catechism
LIFE IN CHRIST – PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL LIFE – THE COMMON GOOD

By common good is to be understood “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals…

… to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily!” (CCC # 1906)