23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
(Sunday 10th September 2017)
Out of Bondage – (Matthew 18:15-20)
Is there someone in your life whom you need to forgive? I remember when the Lord brought someone into my mind who He wanted me to forgive. And I can tell you that I did not want to forgive this person. This person had caused me a great deal of heartache. This individual had committed a sin against me that I had sought healing for for over 30 years. Yet, I knew that Our Lord was asking me to forgive.
In today’s Gospel, we learn a great spiritual truth. The truth that we learn is if we do not forgive, we hold that individual in bondage to the sin that they committed against us. We also hold ourselves in bondage to that sin too. I remember when I was working through this particular moment in my life with my spiritual director who shared with me that it was not an option to forgive. I had to forgive. Jesus requires it. Over and over again in Sacred Scripture, He tells us that we must forgive. It is not an option. In the great prayer that He gives us, the ‘Our Father’, He states that we will be forgiven as we forgive others who trespasses against us. And so I was convicted that I needed to forgive, but how was I going to begin this process? How would I start it? I didn’t know and I said to my spiritual director at the time that the problem is that I did not want to forgive. He asked me if I can at least desire to forgive, but I said that I could not. He asked if I could desire to desire to forgive and I said that maybe I could start there.
In that process of forgiveness, I learned many things. I learned, first of all, what forgiveness is not. Sometimes it is the faulty notions about forgiveness that we have that prevents us from forgiving. Forgiveness does not mean that the sin that was committed against us does not matter. Forgiveness does not mean that we forgive and forget. Forgiveness does not mean that now everything is okay. Forgiveness does not mean that now there is not any retribution necessary. What forgiveness does mean and what it truly is, is a free will action prompted by God that frees us from the sins that have been committed against us. It is a free-will action. Forgiveness is not about emotion. It is about an act of the will. It is about making a decision to forgive and moving forward in that decision. Sometimes it can take our emotions a very long time to catch up to the path that we have embarked upon. But that is not what becomes the evaluating factor as to whether or not we are forgiving. The very fact that we have made that action to forgive, that decision to forgive and we are following through on it, means that that forgiving process has begun.
How do we move forward? I learned that Jesus’ word to pray for our persecutors is the absolute way in which we begin to feel a real compassion of heart for the very person who has sinned against us. It is mighty hard to pray for someone and to stay angry with them.
In that process of praying for the individual, the Lord began to show me something. He showed me that this individual really did deserve my compassion and not my anger. How could that be, you might ask? What God showed me at that moment was that the individual who hurt me was devoid of any knowledge of just how much God loved them. Had this person been aware of the love of God, they could never have done what occurred. And so in a very real way, that person deserved my compassion and truly did deserve my prayer. God brings good out of every situation. And what good could be brought out of this situation? Maybe that through my prayer, a soul could be saved.
Who is it that you need to forgive? Are you willing to allow the Lord to lead you on a process of forgiveness? If so, you will be set free and so will the person who has sinned against you.