24th Sunday of Ordinary Time
On Friday we had the 25th anniversary of 9/11 in the USA. It is hard to believe that it is 25 years since the horrific events of that day, I am sure we all remember where we were when the Planes flew into the World Trade Centre and all the chaos that happened after that. We pray for all those who died and we also pray for peace in our world as there seems to be war in so many places these days.
In the First Reading from The book of Sirach was written about 200BC by a Jewish scribe. The early Church relied on the text as a source to teach morality and it became known as ‘the Church book’ or ‘Ecclesiasticus’ and this was the name St Jerome used when translating the Bible. Today’s reading warns against anger and the temptation to vengeance, reminding the reader that allowing resentment to build and leaving no room for compassion or forgiveness will end badly. In the Second Reading Saint Paul is writing to a diverse group of Christians in Rome; a mix of converts from paganism and Judaism with different views on several issues. This short reading comes at the end of a longer passage where the author has been admonishing those who are quick to criticise others for their practices. Ultimately, Paul writes, it makes no difference who or what we are; all of us died with Christ in baptism, all of us live with Christ
Our Gospel reading for this Sunday is all about forgiveness. The parable of the unforgiving official is told in order to underline our need for forgiveness. When the king calls his court officials to audit the accounts, one shows a deficiency of ten thousand talents, a colossal sum of money. The sum is deliberately extravagant, running into millions of pounds, to heighten the contrast with the few pounds owed to the official. When the king orders the sale of the debtor and his family into slavery, the official pleads for time. The king feels sorry for him and decides to remit the whole of the vast debt. The official, however, learns nothing from his experience, for he refuses to give a colleague time to pay a trifling debt; instead, he has him thrown into prison. When this heartless behaviour is reported to the king, the grant of full forgiveness is withdrawn, and the unforgiving official is thrown to the torturers.
What do we learn from this parable about showing mercy the saying goes that the mercy we show to others will also be the mercy that will be shown to us. We often forget that God shows us mercy In the same way that the king showed mercy to the official! If we think we do not need the mercy of God, we need to stop and think about it for all of us need gods’ mercy in one way or another. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where it was difficult to forgive someone who offended you all of us have been in that situation at some time in our lives. Forgiveness can be very hard in many situations, and for this reason it takes a long time before we bring ourselves to forgive those who sin against us especially when they might be people, we trusted a lot. In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus tells us that God’s forgiveness has necessary limits, but perhaps these are just the limits we set ourselves. The unforgiving slave brings judgment on himself by treating his own forgiveness as a license to bring judgment on others. He thus transforms a merciful king into a vengeful judge.
Clearly the master represents God and the servant represents us. So how many times should we forgive the person who wrongs us? When Jesus says seventy-seven times, he really means stop counting. Each day let us ask the Lord for forgiveness for all our sins Let us forgive all those who have sinned against us because that is what our father in heaven asks us to do. Remember our Father in heaven sent us Jesus his son to point the way and he encourages us to follow him.
Fullerton T 