The following reflection is by Fleur Dorrell, Biblical Apostolate Manager for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales in partnership with the Bible Society.
Jesus, as a little child, would have first heard Psalm 103 sung by the Cantor in his local synagogue in
Nazareth. It’s a psalm of pure praise of God and of the depth of God’s mercy. It goes back to a terrible
time in his people’s history. Defeated, they were taken into slavery in an alien land as slaves. Slowly they
accepted it was their fault. They had not lived according to the covenant God had made with Abraham
and Moses. They had not created a society in God’s pattern which protected the widow, the stranger
and the orphan – the powerless ones in their midst. The Psalm proclaims God’s faithful loving kindness.
God did not give up on them but brought them back home to start again. And their response in song is
profound “Bless the Lord O my soul” literally means ‘let all that I am bless God’s holy and mysterious
name.’ This is the God who can forgive us even before we know we need forgiveness.
As he grew up Jesus would have heard the words of Ben Sirach (a Jewish teacher) that the divine mercy,
that we pray and hope for ourselves, must become how we live towards others. Jesus learnt that
resentment, ongoing anger, holding people’s faults in our hearts and memories, these are all destructive
of common life together.
Forgiveness, mercy and reconciliation become core themes of Jesus’ teaching. But even his closest
disciples found this difficult. Was there to be no limit to our forgiveness? They found this unrealistic! It
certainly wasn’t the teaching of many Rabbis who thought it appropriate to forgive someone, who
sincerely repented, up to three times. Peter thinks he is being very generous when he suggests we might
forgive someone who has offended us seven times. Seven of course in the bible is the number of
completeness, perfection, and spiritual fulfilment. God created the Cosmos in seven days. How must
Peter have felt then when Jesus said not seven times “but 70 times 7!” Its worth noting that his sort of
exaggeration is used often in Hebrew stories. Jesus doesn’t literally mean 490 times. He is saying the
mercy of God can not be limited by human judgement. He illustrates this by telling a powerful story.
A king lets a senior minister off an enormous debt, 10,000 talents of gold bullion. Enough money to run a
small kingdom for a year. But the same minister seeing a simple servant who owed him 100 denarii, the
money a labourer would earn in a day, has him placed in prison until he pays this amount off. The King is
furious and calls him back to say he should have showed his servant the same mercy he had been shown.
He has learnt nothing from the King’s amazing generosity. The king is obviously a symbol of divine mercy.
And Jesus calls all of us who hear him to share the same mercy and forgiveness with all those in our debt.
Later, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them a prayer that will mark them out as his disciples. He teaches
them the Our Father. At its heart are the words “Forgive us our debts/trespasses as we forgive those who
trespass against us.”
Forgiveness is so central to Jesus’ teaching that we are to say to God “Don’t forgive us unless we
forgive others.” When we say the “Our Father” we are asking God to help us forgive as he
forgives. God’s Holy Spirit will always help us to do this if we truly ask for the Spirit’s help.
St. Paul tells us our lives our not just our own. We live in communion with all God’s children. With the
risen Jesus we are in union with all those saints and sinners living now, and all those who have gone
before us into the promised, faithful loving-kindness of our reconciling, merciful God. Living the
life of forgiveness is not without its tensions. Always in the Church there are groups who disagree
with one another. Only when we realise we are all forgiven can we discover in our hearts the divine
mercy that can set us free to live creatively together. Our whole Christian life is an education in
forgiveness and mercy.
Who do we need to forgive? Can we ask for God’s help?
Do we need to forgive ourselves?
How can we serve God by showing forgiveness this week?
Who is a model of forgiveness for us?
Just as God forgives us, may we forgive each other.
The “Our Father”
If you’d like to know more about our national God who Speaks initiative and to share ideas,
activities and resources on the Scriptures, go to: Godwhospeaks.uk
Quotes about education which may be of use in preparing homilies for Education Sunday.
