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OMELIE / Omelie EN

26/6/2016
17/09/2017 – 24th Sunday of o. t. - year A

17/09/2017 – 24th Sunday of o. t.  - year A

1st reading  Sir 27,30 - 28,9  from Psalm  102/103  2nd reading  Rm 14,7-9  Gospel  Matthew 18,21-35


Last Sunday our Lord has taught us how to correct our brothers and sisters discreetly, but also without giving up before their difficulties. Today he corrects each one of us! We are almost incorrigible: how much we resist the Word that has been given us today! We are surprised that Peter asked Jesus if it is allowed to think to be able to forgive seven times! Differently from Peter, we think that it would be exaggerated even to suggest to do it thrice! True forgiveness, deep and full, we do not even venture to grant it twice! However, Jesus helps us to understand the need and the beauty of forgiveness, and he helps us with a parable that contains a particular power of persuasion.

The debtor that sees his debt of ten thousand talents cancelled, a huge sum of money, is not able to be charitable towards whom owes him only one hundred denarii. Nobody listening to this story can approve the cruel servant. Nevertheless, practically, we behave like this. God is not asking us to be compensated for the gift of His life that He gave us, not even for the gift, way more precious, of the faith we have in Him, but He does not even ask us to make full amend for our little or great sins. We quickly forget these benefits. We are always ready to remember the mistakes, voluntary or not, of whom is passing by us or even of whom lives and works to our benefit, labouring all day long! We are worse, way worse, than the “wicked servant” from the parable. Since we are listening to Jesus, and we let him benefit us,  we should be different, act like He acts towards us.

The words from the book of Sirach are also very strong (first reading): “Whoever exacts vengeance will experience the vengeance of the Lord, who keeps strict account of sin. Pardon your neighbour any wrongs done to you, and when you pray, your sins will be forgiven. If anyone nurses anger against another, can one then demand compassion from the Lord? Showing no pity for someone like oneself, can one then plead for one's own sins?”, and also “Remember the last things, and stop hating”! The parable by Jesus is a development of these reasoning, already rooted in the people’s conscience, and in ours too.

Saint Paul gives us another thought that, if accepted, makes even easier for us to forgive. “None of us lives for himself, … while we are alive, we are living for the Lord”: this is true, I have started living for our Lord Jesus, and I have decided many times to give my life to Him, the happy moments and also the troubled ones. Every time I repeated the baptismal promises, I renewed the abandonment of my existence in the Father’s hands and in Jesus’ heart. Indeed, a concrete way to demonstrate it, is forgiving. Forgiving comes almost easy when I think that whoever hurts me, or hates me, or speaks ill of me, need to be saved and freed from who makes him act that way. Whoever slanders me or ruins my name in a wicked way, or whoever behaves unjustly towards me, robbing me of what is mine, they are distancing themselves from God’s goodness and they are refusing His Spirit: they need to be helped. Just because they touch me or cross me, I realise the danger in which they are: I am the first one that can help them with my goodness, my smile, my word, my prayer. I live for the Lord, so I can and I must help my brother to remain faithful to Him, and I also have to “help” the Lord to send him His love and him to be able to feel it. “We are living for the Lord”, and joy will never abandon our heart!

The apostle says that just “It was for this purpose that Christ both died and came to life again: so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living”. It is His doing and His gift the fact that we live for Him, and for Him we live to our last final breath. Knowing that we live for Him frees us from so many bondages, all of those that create suffering for us and for all the other people around us: vanities, ambitions, greed of money, fear to make a poor impression, etc. If I live for Jesus, I try to make a good impression to Him, and so I am also able to forgive without effort. Then, when I forgive, since I live for Jesus and I intend to die for Him, I try to remember that I am a sinner too, I continuously need to be forgiven. Even the sin that I forgive the brother, it is not guarantee that it has not been committed by him in complicity with my negligence or my distraction, or with my bad example, or my faithless prayer.

Forgiving is a divine doing: when I forgive I am like the Father. When I forgive I identify myself with God and I make room for Him. I have everything to gain from forgiving. I will always look for occasions to do so!