"Forgive your neighbor's injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven." This quote from the Book of Sirach predates Christ's teachings by nearly 200 years. As radical as Jesus' message seemed to the people of the time, He was teaching people what God had been asking for the entire time: that we need to learn to love as God loves. Sadly, even having Jesus spell it out for us, so many of us ignore the simple task He asks of us and instead hide behind ritual and false righteousness.
I definitely need to work on being more forgiving. One of the downsides of my normally excellent memory (even if it has been failing more of late) is that my mind replays events in which I feel that I have been wronged in some way. Thus, I can hold onto grudges for an extremely long time.
However, Jesus calls on me to forgive not once or twice or even seven times, but every time that I feel that I've been wronged. While the reading from Sirach and today's Gospel talk about forgiveness in terms of debt, I think of it also in terms of the weight on my soul. The grudges that I carry weigh me down, keeping my thoughts from making their way to greater purposes and designs.
I definitely need to work on being more forgiving. One of the downsides of my normally excellent memory (even if it has been failing more of late) is that my mind replays events in which I feel that I have been wronged in some way. Thus, I can hold onto grudges for an extremely long time.
However, Jesus calls on me to forgive not once or twice or even seven times, but every time that I feel that I've been wronged. While the reading from Sirach and today's Gospel talk about forgiveness in terms of debt, I think of it also in terms of the weight on my soul. The grudges that I carry weigh me down, keeping my thoughts from making their way to greater purposes and designs.
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