Thursday of 19th Week, uneven numbered year
“Then Peter went up to Jesus and said, ’Lord, how often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often as seven times?’ Jesus answered, ’Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times seven.”
Peter will become the intendant of the Lord’s goods, of his infinite Love, he asks the question, in order to know how often should he forgive. There exists a link between the immense treasure of God’s infinite love and the relationship we have with one another. Seven is a perfect number. Jesus replies to Peter : ’I tell you, not seven times but seventy-seven times!’ The way we behave in our fraternal relationships is how we behave with God. When we pray the Our Father ’Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’ we are not talking about an amount of anything.The measure we serve for our fraternal relationships is the measure we give to God for us. : ’Lord, by love of your name, respond to our call, forgive us our offences as we forgive those who have offended us.’ We would like God to listen to us, we like to feel His Presence.Now, it is in fraternal love that communion with God is built up.
“Throwing himself at his master’s feet, his companion said’ Be patient with me and I will pay the whole sum. But the other would not agree; on the contrary he had him thrown in prison till he should pay the debt. Then the master sent for the man and said to him, ’You wicked servant, I cancelled all that debt of yours when you appealed to me.Were you not bound, then, to have pity on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you?’ And in his anger the master handed him over to the torturers till he should pay all his debt.”
This gospel passage is eloquent and we can easily transpose it. Vis- a- vis to God we were insolvent, he forgave us our sins, we ought therefore to forgive those who have wronged us or who have wounded us. The term used by Jesus evokes a form of mercy vis- a- vis to the one who has offended us. Jesus, in the parable of
debts, manifests to the Master that he is seized with pity before this man’s indigence, showing, by this, God’s infinite Love for us. ’Taken up with pity, this servant’s master lets him go and paid off his debt.’ But the reprieved man mistreats one of his ’indebted’, forgetting the mercy he had received! Forgiveness places us into the Paschal Mystery which is the recognition of God’s unbelievable love for us. This is how he likes us to behave in our fraternal relationships.
“And this is how my heavenly Father will deal with you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart.”
The way we treat our brothers is how God treats us. We are aware of the infinite Love with which we are loved, it is our joy and a perfect joy! In this incredible love, we welcome our brothers with the same love. With the same love with which we are loved, we want to love ourselves, just as we can love a person with a handicap and love him as he is with his handicap. Likewise, we ought to love ourselves with our own handicaps which are not of a physical order but rather of a psychic or maladjusted order. This allows us to already excuse many aspects . As for all that hurts us on the inside, awakening a kind of bitter grudge that doesn’t sometimes want to go away, we need to use our reason, telling ourselves that our intention had been a good one and we ought to go beyond our ruffled susceptibility. What counts the most is to maintain, or re-establish as soon as possible ,the relationship that has been affected in spite of our clumsiness. Let us not lose time through a lack of love.