With Opened Bible
24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Forgive your neighbor’s injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.”
(Sirach 27)
This Sunday's theme invites us to reflect on our relationships with others. The first reading and the Gospel challenge us: the believer must know how to forgive and live by forgiveness to be forgiven themselves.
Turning to the Holy Scriptures, we discover that the concept of forgiveness evolved from the Law of Moses to the teaching of Jesus. For Moses, relationships among the Jewish people were defined by retributive justice. Thus, the law declared: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (Exodus 21:24). This concept belonged to an era of self-administered justice, where the perpetrator of a crime had to suffer a penalty equivalent to the harm they had inflicted. Yet, upon closer inspection, had this law not been superseded by the Gospel's teaching, our world would be filled with one-eyed people.
Fortunately, the coming of Jesus transformed this situation. Forgiveness is offered and lived out not only by the wrongdoer but also by the very person who is the victim. When we forgive, we set our-selves free. "Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times?" Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times" (Matthew 18:21-22). Under the Gospel, the Christian is called to forgive perfectly—without limit; such is the significance of the number seventy.
Forgiving others also prepares us to receive forgiveness for our own offenses. This is what Jesus teaches us in the Lord's Prayer: "and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (Matthew 6:12). And He added: "If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you." But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions." (Matthew 6: 14-15) With Jesus, forgiveness becomes self-liberation.
