Homily: Tuesday of the 3rd Week of Lent 2016 - Forgive seventy-seven times

The somber days of Lent provide us with an opportunity to do some serious soul-searching: examination of our conscience, reflection on our vices and virtues and habits and attitudes, with the hopes of identifying any obstacles in our hearts which keep us from imitating Our Lord and growing in holiness.

I always encourage folks to give up television, movies, video games, and excessive use of the internet during Lent, these things which often occupy a lot more of our time than we think.  And once they’re gone, we have a little bit more time to think about our lives, our relationships.  We strip away some of those external distractions, and when we do that, our interior lives can begin to grow.

I think many people are resistant to give up these external distractions, because their interior lives are not all that pleasant.  Many of us can carry around some serious interior burdens in the form of resentment and bitterness over past hurts—old wounds which have gone unhealed for many years.

So Lent provides an opportunity to bring those wounds to the healer—to Jesus, the medicus vitae—the doctor of life.

In the Gospel today, Jesus teaches the most important remedy for the healing of our wounded souls and wounded relationships: forgiveness.  Through Jesus’ passion and death, God has forgiven us—our wounded relationship with God is healed.  And we are called to practice that same forgiveness towards others.  Just as there is not a single sin God will not forgive, so too there isn’t a single sin that we are not called to forgive.

Jesus says to forgive not just seven times, but seven times seven.

In the Hebrew tradition the number seven is a sacred number and refers to the limitless holiness of God.  When Jesus commands his disciples to forgive “seventy times seven” times, it is to say that his disciples are to have no limit in their own forgiveness. 

It is difficult to forgive those who betray us—who offend, who harm us with their words and actions.  To forgive them sometimes feels like we are giving them a free pass.  Forgiving once, is sometimes hard enough, when we are hurt, there is that part of us that says, “I don’t want to talk to them, I don’t want to see them, I don’t want to be near them, I don’t even want to think about them.”  A Christian must never say, “I will never forgive you.” 

For Christ came to heal the wounds of sin and division—our division from God, and the division we continue to create between ourselves. 

So we need to be constantly about the work of forgiveness.  If upon self-examination you detect any anger or any hurt, now is the time to let it go.  And if the Holy Spirit is urging you to seek the forgiveness of a family member or neighbor you may have offended, go, do your best to be reconciled, to make peace, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.