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

“Pardon, and you shall be pardoned,” say this Sunday’s Readings. “If you do not pardon, you will not be pardoned.”

Jesus made this point repeatedly. After teaching us to say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” he added, “If you forgive the faults of others, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours. If you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you.”

We find it hard to accept this teaching. One reason is that our neighbours’ faults seem so great, while ours seem so small.

We probably all have someone who makes our life much more difficult than it need be: a parent, spouse, child, boss, co-worker, employee, etc. We see the fatal flaw in his character which brings all our efforts to grief. We have tried talking to him, but he refuses to listen, or shouts us down, or agrees to change but does not.

If we are not mistaken, we are seeing what God sees in this person: what He sees when He looks into any home, school, parish, or workplace. It is this, no matter how bad it is, that He is willing to forgive.

Now when God looks into any home, school, parish, or workplace, He sees another person, one whom we do not see: ourself. We may be quite certain that, just as in other people, there is something in us on which our neighbours’ best efforts are always shipwrecked. They have tried to tell us about it, but we did not understand them, or we thought they were mistaken or simply in a bad mood. This, too, is what God is willing to forgive.

“How small the debts men owe to us, how great our debt to You,” we sing in the hymn. To help us realize this fact and correct the bias we have toward ourselves simply because they are ourselves, we must be careful to interpret our neighbours’ thoughts, words, and deeds as favorably as possible. “Every good Christian ought to be more ready to give a favourable interpretation to another’s statement than to condemn it,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

At the same time, we must be careful not to minimize our own sins. If we are not conscious of our guilt, then, though we are part of the world Jesus came to save, we are not part of the audience to whom His words are addressed.

It is good to think of our own sins with the horror with which we think of our neighbours’ sins, especially the sins they commits to which we are not tempted.

God will forgive any sin, no matter how great. “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool,” he said. Every Sunday, in the Creed, we proclaim that we believe in “the forgiveness of sins.” There is nothing He will not forgive.

We may find God’s forgiveness hard to accept. We may think that our sin is too great to be forgiven. This can be a form of sinful pride, a lack of true humility. I am afraid that this is what some people may mean when they say that they “cannot forgive themselves.”

The truth is that when we repent a sin and confess it in the Sacrament of Penance, the priest’s absolution always gets rid of the guilt. Do we really believe in the forgiveness of sins?

As for our neighbour’s forgiveness, we all find it hard to accept; it takes humility, too. We must realize that if we have a good relationship with our spouse, children, employees, boss, or co-workers, it is only because they are forgiving.

Whenever we sin, we sin against both God and our neighbours. Sin severs both relationships. Reconciliation, which restores them, means both forgiving and being forgiven.

Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English with new insights. The whole course is available in written form and, one session per week, in YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Father is also  teaching the course in person: on Sundays at 2:00 pm in the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 St John Paul II Way, Vancouver (33rd and Willow); and on Mondays at 10:00 am in St. Anthony’s Church hall, 2347 Inglewood Avenue, West Vancouver. The title of next week’s talk is “Who is Jesus Christ?” No pre-registration is necessary.