SELECT HERE for the Audio recording of the Readings of
Sunday, September 13th, 2020, Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

SELECT HERE for the Readings of Sunday, September 13th, 2020, Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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Sunday, September 13th, 2020, Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

 

Wrath and anger are hateful things.  Yet the sinner hugs them tight.
Sirach 27: 30

‘I forgive you’ (– a liberating experience)


How many credit cards do you have?  When does your credit card tempt you the most?
 
Wrath, anger or vengeance are like credit cards.  They tempt us many times, their results can be immediate and swiftly effective, yet they have another side to them: they have deep damaging ‘hidden fees’ that leave us, our relationships with others and our relationship with God, ruined.  The readings we listen to this weekend offer us an alternative or another way and that is, the believer/Christian must learn to forgive, to give mercy, to be compassionate.  This is what Christ’s lifestyle is and what a liberating experience it can be.
 
The first reading is from the Book of Sirach; written by a retired Jewish Elder statesman.  This sage builds an academy in Jerusalem to impart and train young people, the conduct of life, values and right behavior, how to make the right relationships, how to be upright.  His faith is ever present.  The early believing societies believed in the ‘present life’.  The ‘present’ is not a dress rehearsal, this is it!, so how you lived mattered. Divine judgment/punishment or reward is totally based on how you have lived your life . The way to deal with wrath and anger or vengeance was only one: ‘forgive’ and forgive now! Forgive your neighbor’s injustice.  One who does not forgive will in turn not be forgiven by God.  The writer applies an old Babylonian law –the law of Talion:  ‘eye for an eye’.  Criminals should be punished precisely for the same injustices and damages they inflict upon their victims, so God forgives those who forgive the same way and measure.
 
Could anyone nourish anger against another
and expect healing from the LORD?
Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself,
can he seek pardon for his own sins?
Remember your last days, set enmity aside; (Sirach 28: 3-4, 6)
 
The young (we) must remember that to believe in Yahweh is to forgive.  Pardoning others is a condition for divine forgiveness.  Refuse mercy, you will not be given mercy.
 
What toll has anger or wrath taken on you or your relationship with others? Do you hold on to anger or a grudge? Why does mercy and compassion not attract us?
 
Every time I listen to the parable of the unmerciful servant, I conclude by saying he rightly deserves his punishment. How can one who has just been given a great pardon from a heavy debt not be moved by this act of generosity.  He goes and does the opposite to a fellow servant who owes him a much smaller amount??  This is wrong! Yet how often it does happen in our day to day living. The forgiveness that the unmerciful servant received was not a liberating experience.  He did not learn anything from it so to cancel the smaller debt of his brother.
 
In today’s gospel, to receive mercy is to give mercy.  To be forgiven by God, means to forgive each other.  To refuse to forgive is to imprison/choke oneself in the hell of isolation (ego or self).  It means to cut off from the community of repeated forgiveness. The only way to tear down this wall is to be a person of boundless (limitless) forgiveness. As Jesus says: to forgive seven times seventy seven times (meaning indefinite).  It is this that will set us free.
 
We must learn to forgive, to embrace this liberating path and lifestyle of Jesus.  It deflates us from our hurts (the hell created in us).  It nurtures more dialogue among people and talking to others.  Pardoning others heals ruptured communities best and leads to a path of transformation even for those who have fallen from grace in our eyes.  Let us never be tempted to be hard of heart.
 
‘Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’, these are the liberating words of Jesus that open the door to our salvation.  Let us live the same way, never hesitate to be moved with compassion and mercy over all things, this is God’s way.

God Bless,
Fr. Anthony



View the below videos for other reflections on the readings.