Homily – 24th Sunday – Cycle A – Fr Jeremiah Browne (National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies #southafrica #Swaziland #eswatini #Botswana)
Do you ever find yourself holding on to a grudge, or a hurt? It’s so easy to do. Lewis Smedes, a writer and theologian, once wrote, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free only to discover that the prisoner was you.”
There is a great deal of truth in those words, but making the choice to forgive can be very difficult. All of us carry hurts. It might be the hurt of a betrayal of trust or a relationship that ended badly. It could come from a family disagreement, or from words spoken years ago that wounded us deeply. Sometimes the hurt is self-inflicted – something we did, a mistake or sin from the past that still haunts us.
The truth is that many of us misunderstand what forgiveness really means. We often think that forgiveness is about the other person, but forgiveness is also about ourselves — about healing the wound within us and refusing to allow what someone else has done to continue controlling our lives.
Another misconception is that forgiveness means forgetting. We sometimes hear the expression “forgive and forget,” as though forgiveness means pretending that nothing happened. But forgetting a hurt isn’t the same as healing a hurt. We can bury something for years and still discover that the anger, resentment or bitterness remains just beneath the surface.
It is also important to understand that forgiving someone doesn’t mean excusing what they have done. Some things are wrong and must be named as wrong. Forgiveness doesn’t mean tolerating abuse, overlooking injustice or pretending that the hurt wasn’t real. There are times when justice must be sought, and appropriate boundaries put in place. We can forgive someone while still acknowledging that what they did was wrong.
So what do the readings today say to us about forgiveness? When Peter asks Jesus, “How often must I forgive?” (Matthew 18:21–35). Peter suggests seven times, but Jesus replies, “Not seven, but seventy-seven times.” In other words, stop counting.
Forgiveness isn’t an optional extra in our daily living; it is an essential aspect of all human relationships because none of us gets through life without hurting others or being hurt ourselves.
We misunderstand one another, we say things we later regret, we disappoint people, and sometimes we fail those we love most. If every hurt is remembered and every offence held onto, we eventually end up miserable, bitter and angry. Our lives are robbed of joy because the hurt we carry within us inevitably spills over into our relationships with others. Sirach warns us about precisely this in our first reading (Sirach 27:30–28:7) when he declares, “Wrath and anger are hateful things.”
Maybe that is why Jesus goes on to tell the parable of the unforgiving servant. In doing so, he wants us to reflect on the reality that there have been moments in all our lives when we have needed forgiveness. It is easy to forget our own sins and failings when we are busy nurturing a hurt or grievance of our own.
The servant in the parable had been shown extraordinary mercy, but somehow that mercy failed to change him. He had been forgiven, but he couldn’t forgive. Jesus wants us to recognise something of ourselves in him. We are quick to ask God to forgive our own sins and failings, but sometimes much slower to forgive the sins and failings of others. The mercy we receive from God is meant to change us; it is meant to shape the way we treat one another.
What happens in life is not always fair; it is not always right. But if we want to be free, if we want to be at peace, we must learn to let go. Forgiveness doesn’t excuse what happened, it simply refuses to allow what happened to continue controlling our lives.
So, what might this Gospel be asking of us today? Is there a hurt that we need to heal? Is there someone we need to forgive, or maybe something in our own lives that we finally need to let go? Is there a burden we have carried for too long that it is now time to hand over to God? Maybe today is the day to do that.
Forgiveness cannot change the past, but it can change our future. Maybe that is what Lewis Smedes meant: when we finally find the courage to forgive, we discover that the prisoner being set free is ourselves.
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Please consider praying a decade of the rosary on a daily basis for the evangelising Mission of the Church and the Pope’s intentions.
The Pope’s prayer intention for the month of September is For the care of water
Let us pray for a just and sustainable management of water, a vital resource, so that everyone may have equal access to it.
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Blessed Pauline Jaricot, Pray for us. 🙏🏼🙏🏼
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