Thursday of 19th Week
St. Maximilian Kolbe
Ez 12: 1-12; Mt 18: 21 – 19:1
Dc. Larry Brockman
All of us have these human weaknesses, things we know we shouldn’t do, like things we say over and over; habits we have; addictions we have; attitudes we have or things we do to others that we know irritate and even hurt them; like nagging, failing to listen, ignoring, dominating, or dismissing someone else’s feelings. We know they are wrong, and yes, sinful.
And yet, much as we resolve to fix them, we fail over and over in our attempts to correct them. We go to confession, face up to them, and honestly resolve to move on. But then we go ahead and do them again. We don’t just ask God to forgive these things, we expect God to forgive these things over and over again. That is what God’s mercy is all about; it is part of our Christian hope. But when it comes to ourselves forgiving others; well, we have a problem forgiving someone else over and over again for these kinds of things. Husbands and wives; parents and children; workers and bosses continually rub each other the wrong way with these kinds of behaviors, and we find it difficult to truly forgive each other for them.
But you see, it is all part of God’s plan for us to learn how to take on the image and likeness of God, and act like Him too. We are made in the image and likeness of God, including the free will He gave us. And our journey here as human beings is a constant learning experience for us on how to balance our freedom of will with the other characteristics of the “image and likeness of God”.
Not the least of the characteristics we need to learn Is to learn how to be merciful as God is merciful to us. I want to be clear that I am not condoning bad behavior by our loved ones, bosses, and society in general. I am not saying that tolerating bad behavior is acceptable; only that it needs to be forgiven as God would forgive our bad behavior. And that is the balance that we all need to learn because you see, our bad behavior has consequences, And while God can forgive us, we still have to suffer the consequences of our behavior.
The story in the first reading emphasizes this all too well. The Lord tells Ezekiel that the Israeli people have eyes and ears, but they are not seeing and hearing. They were ignoring the law and the word of the prophets. That is because they were too preoccupied with themselves. Isn’t that the problem with the people we are finding so hard to forgive because it is hardest to forgive them when they seem clueless
about the harm they are doing. It is much easier to forgive them when they are humble and
contrite, isn’t it.
The Israeli people of Ezekiel’s time turned a blind eye to the evil they were doing. And so Ezekiel was charged with trying to wake them up before it was too late. He was advising them of the consequences by catching their attention and demonstrating the consequences to them. This in fact is the lesson we see over and over again in the Old Testament. People were complacent with the way they were living their lives. They didn’t see how far adrift they were from God’s will for them and from giving God the attention He deserved. And their complacency carried heavy consequences.
In Ezekiel’s day, the consequence was a terrible exile. But each of the prophets warned the people of his day of the similar doom for not living according to the Lord.
The Gospel story tells us the same thing about the servant and the master. God will indeed forgive us everything; but we too must forgive others the same way otherwise, our forgiveness is in jeopardy.
So, leave the consequences to God. Our challenge is to forgive from the heart; even if we have to do it over and over again.
