Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent
"...‘if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?’ Jesus answered, ‘I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.'" –Matthew 18:21-22
Parables often highlight the contrast between our reality and the reality of God’s reign. In today’s gospel, Jesus offers one of his hardest teachings. Forgiving someone seven times sounds heroic. But Jesus stretches it to seventy-seven times. In other words, forgiveness is not something we really count.
Yet if I’m honest, I often do keep count. I cling to resentment. I define myself by who hurt me. I replay conversations and rehearse old wounds until they harden my heart. And the tragedy in today’s parable isn’t just that the servant is harsh; it’s that he has forgotten what the king has done for him by forgiving his debt.
Most of us aren’t holding grudges over small inconveniences. We carry real wounds – betrayal, broken trust, harsh words, family tensions, friendships that ended badly. Forgiveness can feel like minimizing the hurt or pretending nothing happened. But Jesus isn’t asking us to deny pain. He is inviting us not to let resentment become our identity.
Forgiveness is remembering that we live every day from God’s boundless mercy. I’ve been learning that the hardest person to forgive is often ourselves. The challenging command of Jesus to “love one another as I have loved you” becomes even more difficult when we rephrase it as: “Love yourself as I have loved you.” When we truly receive that mercy from God and others, it loosens our grip on the debts we hold against others.
I’m continually invited to ask: Who am I still keeping in emotional prison? And perhaps even harder: How is that keeping me imprisoned too? Forgiveness rarely happens all at once. Often, for me, it means starting with a simple prayer: “Lord, help me to want to forgive.” And that small opening is enough for grace to begin its work – seventy-seven times.
What experiences of forgiveness have most impacted me? From whom do I need to ask forgiveness? Whom do I need to forgive? What do I need to forgive myself for?
David Romero, SJ