WHATEVER YOU FORGIVE IS FORGIVEN

WEDNESDAY, NINTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY

Ezek 9:1-7:10:18-22; Ps 113:1-6; Mt 18:15-20

The Duty of Reconciliation

If our growth in spiritual or Christian life is a journey into Jesus Christ, a gradual transformation into him, then the growing transformation also imbues us with the spirit and duty of reconciliation. The main duty of the Son of Man is to reconcile his brothers and sisters to the Father. Our vocation to follow him also involves our participation in the important mission of reconciling others to God. Any advance in spiritual life that is not marked or characterised by increased longing to speak of the goodness of God the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ, to others is not a genuine and sincere spiritual growth. The urge or longing to speak of God and bring others to know God arises from the sense of gratitude to God for the forgiveness we have received. A deep sense of gratitude prompts us to praise and consecrate ourselves to God; it also inspires us to readily forgive those who offend us, understanding that they do not truly know what they are doing. Hence, our forgiveness of offences others committed against us is an aspect of our gratitude to God for what we have received. Therefore, the forgiveness of wrongs done to us is part and parcel of our Christian vocation. Its pivotal importance and role led the Lord to include it in the prayer he taught us. God’s forgiveness of our sins bears fruit in our forgiveness of the sins of our brothers against us.

When we fail to bear the expected fruits of forgiveness, God sends his angels to clear the unproductive souls from his space or vineyard. The prophet Ezekiel narrated how the obstinacy of the Israelites provoked God’s anger to the destruction of Jerusalem. He sent his angels to destroy the city and the people because of their lack of appreciation for what God had done for them. “He called the man in white with a scribe’s ink horn in his belt and said, ‘Go all through the city, all through Jerusalem, and mark a cross on the foreheads of all who deplore and disapprove of all the filth practised in it.’ I heard him say to the others, ‘Follow him through the city, and strike. Show neither pity nor mercy; old men, young men, virgins, children, women, kill and exterminate them all. But do not touch anyone with a cross on his forehead. Begin at my sanctuary.’” Israel is called a priestly nation because of its vocation to proclaim and give to the nations God’s mercy and goodness. The story of Israel and the prophecies about her apply perfectly to the Church and the Christians. We are now the people set apart to proclaim the goodness of God to the nations. The essential component of the Gospel we are to preach daily through our lives is God’s forgiveness of our sins. We are to be the channels of the divine forgiveness. The Church officially carries out this duty through the Sacrament of Penance, through which she grants forgiveness to all who repent of their sins in the name of Jesus Christ.

Through the reconciliation of human nature, which is objectively achieved in the union of divine and human natures in Jesus Christ, the glory of the Lord, which departed from Jerusalem in Ezekiel, has returned in the new Jerusalem, which is the Church of Christ. Jesus Christ came to seek out and reconcile sinners to the Father; he continues that mission in each of us whom he has forgiven and continues to forgive. He directs us on how to dispose ourselves to be used by God to reconcile sinners. “If your brother does something wrong, go and have it out with him alone, between your two selves. If he listens to you, you have won back your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you: the evidence of two or three witnesses is required to sustain any charge. But if he refuses to listen to these, report it to the community; and if he refuses to listen to the community, treat him like a pagan or a tax collector.” Anyone who refuses to listen to the Church or to receive forgiveness from the Church is an unbeliever; we are to treat such a person so. That implies that such a person is to be an object of our renewed prayer and evangelisation for the person to repent and believe the Gospel. Our Lord did not say we should abandon such a person, but we are to make a more concerted effort for his conversion. We must not let our lives prevent people from returning to God through our inability to forgive. Not to forgive is to provoke God’s anger, for it frustrates his attempts to bring a sinner back.

Let us pray: Almighty ever-living God, whom, taught by the Holy Spirit, we dare to call our Father, bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters, that we may merit to enter into the inheritance which you have promised. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.