24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
First Reading: Sir 27:30 – 28:7
Second Reading: Rom 14:7-9
Gospel Reading: Mt 18:21-35

“Forgive your neighbour the wrong that is done, and then your sins will be pardoned,” we hear in this Sunday’s liturgy. Forgive “not seven times,” but “seventy-seven times.”

Now consider what people say when the issue of praying for Hitler comes up. “I appreciate that we are all God’s children, but to pray for this evil man is going too far.” “I feel there can be no forgiveness for Hitler.”

Why not? Is it because there is no excuse for what he did? Forgiving does not mean excusing. For example, if someone is late because of a traffic accident, his offence is completely excusable; if he has failed to allow for normal rush-hour traffic, it is only partly excusable; and if he has waited for a TV program to finish, it is completely inexcusable. In each case, what is excusable, we must excuse; what is inexcusable, we must forgive.

Only God knows what excuses there are for Hitler. God will excuse whatever can be excused; the rest he will forgive.

Do we think “there can be no forgiveness for Hitler” because the evil he did was too great to be overlooked?

In fact, God will not ignore or overlook any fault, no matter how small. To enter heaven, Jesus said, we must be “made perfect,” like our “heavenly Father.” However, God’s forgiveness is limitless. “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow,” he said.

Now as members of Christ’s mystical body, we must live in harmony not only with him, our head, but also with one another. Accordingly, Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” adding, “if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you.”

“I believe in the forgiveness of sins,” we say in the Creed: not just God’s forgiveness of us, but also our forgiveness of one another.

Jesus set the example. “Has no one condemned you?” he asked the adulteress. “Neither will I condemn you; go, and sin no more.” He does not condone, excuse, ignore, or minimize our offences, even the most trivial; rather he forgives them, even the most grievous. For the future, he demands nothing short of perfection, but for the past, he offers complete and untiring forgiveness.

Forgiving our neighbour does not mean forgetting his offence. (Can Christ forget his crucifixion? Can we forget a spouse’s infidelity?) Rather, it means behaving as though we have forgotten: treating him as though he had not offended us and restoring the relationship that preceded the offence, as far as possible.

It entails abandoning what we might call “self-respect” – what God calls “self-importance.” It can make us feel like a doormat. However, that is precisely what Christ became for us. As we commit the same sin again and again, we walk all over him.

How do we set about forgiving our neighbour? First, we make a decision to do it. Second, we ask God to help us kill our resentment every time it re-surfaces.

As the poet said, “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” He was not calling it acceptable “to err” because we are human; he was recognizing forgiveness as a divine attribute. Only by God’s grace can we forgive one another.

Forgiving is difficult, but so is accepting forgiveness, for it offends our pride. Literature and culture are full of examples. “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” “The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!”

We read phrases like, “she could not forgive herself,” in Anthony Trollope’s Can You Forgive Her? More accurately, she could not accept her fiance’s forgiveness. She knew she had no “right of her own” to his forgiveness and, in pride, refused it as a gift.

In C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, a dying soul says, “I only want my rights. I’m not asking for anybody’s bleeding charity.”

The reply to him is, “Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity.”