Bottomless Forgiveness
Homily on the 24th Sunday in O.T., 17 September 2023
There was this story of a boy named Paulo who suddenly thought of listing down all the good that he had done during the day, and that night before going to bed he left the list on the table for his mom to read. Then with a big smile he went to sleep. When his mom saw the piece of paper, she took it and read: “Dear Mama, I did my bed when I woke up, bill = 5 pesos; I cleaned my room and arranged my toys, bill = 10 pesos; I watered the plants and cleared the garden of dry leaves; bill = 20 pesos; I swept the floor, cleaned around the house and threw the garbage away, bill = 50 pesos; I washed the dishes, bill = 20 pesos. Over-all charge equals P105. Your loving son, Paulo.”
The mother just smiled, took the copy of the billing close to her heart and then returned it on the dining table. And before going to bed that night she too left a note on the table beside the bill of her son.
The following day, when the child woke up he jumped out of the bed and went straight to the dining table to see if he would get his pay that morning. But he was puzzled to see another piece of paper lying beside his bill. He took it and read: “Dear Paulo, Mom cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner; bill = 0; Mom washed the laundry, bill = 0; Mom cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom; bill = 0; Mom did the marketing; bill = 0…. Total bill = zero. Love, Mama.” After reading the note Paulo immediately ran to her Mom and gave her a big hug and said to her, “Mom, today my billing for you is now zero. You can erase all the debts you owe me.”
Dear brothers and sisters, today we are gathered to celebrate the Eucharist, the sacrament of God’s unconditional love for us. For the past Sundays we have been walking with Jesus along the footsteps of St Matthew. And we are getting to know more clearly who Jesus is and what it really means to be following him. Last Sunday we heard him teach us about fraternal correction. If you recall, he told us that if our brother sins against us, we should tell him his fault privately, and avoid spreading gossip about him.
Today we hear the continuation of Jesus’ teaching, this time on fraternal forgiveness. It was actually prompted by Peter’s question which was very much related to fraternal correction. “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times? From Peter’s question we somehow get an idea of what his true character could be. Peter seems to be so impulsive and at the same time super sensitive. He must have experienced so many hurts in life, including his hurts from the tax collector, Matthew, whom Jesus chose to be part of the twelve. Peter must have been nurturing up to that moment some grudges against him and against many others. He must have been hurt many, many times. And so this could explain why he was asking that question. And he thought that giving the right answer to his own question would boost his ego and justify his attitude of non-forgiveness. But to his big astonishment Jesus candidly told him in reply, “Not seven times, Peter, but seventy-times seven times.” What Jesus simply meant was to forgive as many times as our brother hurts us and asks our forgiveness. What Jesus is teaching us is to love one another without counting the cost and to forgive one another without counting the hurts. Forgiveness is the ultimate measure of love.
When you love you should be ready to get hurt. Why? It is because to love a person through and through is to give your heart totally and unconditionally to your beloved. And that hurts, right? Love hurts. Isn’t that the experience of many of you, both young and old? Love hurts. And if you are not ready to get hurt many times over, then you should not love at all, or you should not make the mistake of entering into any love relationship with anyone. But know that to have no one to love can be the saddest and most depressing thing on earth.
When Jesus taught us the importance of fraternal correction and fraternal forgiveness, he wants us to do it in the bigger context of fraternal love; a love that exists and grows between the person who corrects and the person corrected; between the person who forgives and the person asking for forgiveness. If you do not really love the person, or if you do not love the person anymore, then it would be impossible to forgive even if it is just for the first or second time, and much less if it would be for the seventh time and beyond.
So when Jesus tells us to forgive seventy-times seven times, he is telling us to love – our brother or sister, our spouse or children, our neighbour or anyone for that matter – unconditionally and unlimitedly. Bottomless forgiveness comes only from a cup of bottomless love.
That is why marriage vows are very serious. The man and the woman, who are so much in love with each other ‘til death, make this promise to love not only in sickness or in health but also for better or for worse. That means they love each other so much that whatever hurt one receives from the other would not count anything at all. Is that really possible? Yes, it is, but only when their love is greater than every hurt, big or small; when their love is super powerful that it can so easily and so quickly heal any hurt in the heart.
This is in fact what happens when we go to Confession. Recall that as soon as we kneel down before a priest to confess our sins, we say “Bless me, father, for I have sinned. My last confession was last…(week/month).” Take note that the priest never asks the penitent “Could you tell me how many times you have been coming back here since your first confession?” (Ikapila na ba kining imohang pagkumpisal?) What he just wants to know is when the penitent’s last good confession was. We priests know that anyone of the faithful may come back again and again to confess their sins with contrite hearts and through us Jesus will always grant the grace of pardon and peace.
I conclude with another story, this time it is the story of Maria, an eleven year-old girl who was killed by a neighbour after failing to rape her. It happened when the whole village was out of their homes doing farm work in the fields while Maria remained at home sewing a shirt. Suddenly twenty-year old Alessandro barged in with a malicious intent. At once she refused his indecent proposal thinking it would be a terrible offense against God. But the young man insisted and violently forced her into it. Finally, after several attempts to overcome her strong resistance, he decided to kill her, stabbing her many times over until she bled profusely. Moments later when the tragedy was known she was rushed to the hospital, while he was taken to prison. Amazingly, however, before dying in the hospital she uttered her last words “I forgive Alessandro and I want him to be with me in heaven.”
Fast forward… After many years, Alessandro was released from prison and showed signs of being converted. He went straight to the house of Maria and asked forgiveness from the mother whose daughter he murdered. Later on he entered the religious life and became a devout Franciscan. You might ask: What could have happened? What could have been the cause of the sudden change?
You might not believe it but this is coming from the testimony of Alessandro himself. Back during the time when he was still inside his prison cell, one night he had a dream. And in that dream he saw Maria coming to him with a bouquet of fourteen flowers, telling him: “Alessandro, I forgive you as many times as you have stabbed me to death.” After speaking those words, she then started giving those lilies one by one to Alessandro. Each stab on her body was equivalent to one lily of forgiveness given to her murderer, one, two, three, up to fourteen. Brothers and sisters, can you guess whose story this is? It is the life story of St. Maria Goretti, virgin and martyr. Her feast day is by the Church every year on July 6.
May we be inspired by this example of fraternal forgiveness when love can truly be much greater than the hurt. May this Eucharist we celebrate today empower us to forgive our brothers and sisters from the heart in the same way that the Lord has forgiven our sins on the cross. Keep in mind, from a bottomless heart comes bottomless forgiveness. GiGsss!
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