Sitting with the Sacred

This week’s readings:

1. Sirach 27:30—28:7
2. Psalm 103:1–2, 3–4, 9–10, 11–12
3. Romans 14:7–9
4. John 13:34

What this week’s readings say to me:

The theme of this week’s readings is forgiveness — how it’s God’s nature and why extending it to others is important. The first reading asks me a question: how can I expect forgiveness if I can’t forgive others, especially considering that they are subject to the same weaknesses I struggle with? The second reading offers reassurance, conveying that God isn’t like me. God is “slow to anger” (Ps. 103: 9). God doesn’t “requite us according to our crimes” (103:10). “As far as the east is from the west/so far has he put our transgressions from us” (103: 11). “[S]o surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him” (103: 13).

Now I don’t believe in being asked to be afraid of God. What I am being asked is to recognize that I’m not God. God shares some knowledge with me, but not all knowledge. God’s ways are not my ways (Isa. 55:8).

The third reading offers a lesson in how to respond to this reality: remember whom you and everyone else around you was created in the image of — God. So I ask God to help that image be reflected in me. The result of allowing God’s image to be reflected in me would be living for God and for others in God rather than for myself. It would mean forgiving others because I want God to forgive me. And He does if I acknowledge my sins to Him. Doing so hands might sin-wounded soul over to Him for healing. Confessing my sins to someone who has been given the ministry of this healing helps me hand my sins over. I’m more likely to struggle with the weight of something when I carry it without the help of someone who is being God’s ears and voice. In the Gospel reading, Jesus tells a parable with a tough message for anyone who doesn’t approach the wrongdoings and shortcomings of others with God’s forgiving ears and voice.

Let’s see what someone else has to say about that message.

What someone else is sharing about this week’s readings:

Caitlin Morneau’s reflection reminds me that forgiveness isn’t something a person can snap his or her fingers and make happen. It takes a conscious decision to forgive, and then even once the decision to forgive is made, it takes time and effort to put into practice. Her perspective also reminds me that not being able to take that time and make that effort is a punishment in and of itself.

Beyond this week’s readings:

As I typed that last reminder, I wondered if there would be a way to reconcile it with the message of the Gospel reading. I had my doubts. I remembered the message of the Gospel reading being that I needed to forgive others as God has forgiven me, and if I don’t, God won’t forgive me.

I struggled with this understanding because I couldn’t make it mesh with the message I was getting from the psalm. I didn’t expect the tension I was experiencing from the struggle to resolve because, let’s face it, sometimes passages in the Bible just don’t agree with each other. Different scriptures were written at different times. Even within a single culture, understandings of God and God’s will evolve over time, and the differences between passages may reflect that evolution. Different books that are included within the biblical canon were also written with different audiences and purposes in mind. Some of them are poems; some of them are more like folktales. They have morals just like an Aesop’s fable or a Grimm’s fairy tale does. Others have more in common with legal documents than with a poem or a story.

So sometimes the differences between Scripture passages just are what they are, and I have to sit with the tension, the unanswered question, or the challenging lesson, and ask myself what words from a reading session stand out for me on a given day. I use the answer to that question to help me discern what God has to say to me at that moment.

Surprisingly though, when I went back to the Gospel after reading Caitlin Morneau’s reflection, the king in the parable no longer seemed as punitive. It isn’t the king who punishes the servant who doesn’t forgive the debts of others. Rather, the translation I’m using says that the king “handed [the servant] over to torturers (Mat. 18:34) What are the torturers? What is the debt but the effects of unforgiveness on the person who shoulders them?

Unforgiveness might be the sin I struggle with the most. In God I Have Issues: 50 Ways to Pray No Matter How You Feel, Fr. Mark Thibodeaux describes an approach he learned to use to free himself from the torture of unforgiveness:

Adapting the insights from a particular style of psychological therapy called Gestalt, I prayed in my chair with two other chairs in front of me. I sat Jesus in one of those chairs and my offender in the other. With Jesus present, I would say anything that I wanted to my offender. I might yell at him or curse him or tell him all sorts of despicable things. But at the end of my prayer time, I allowed both of my two guests to speak to me as well. At the end of our conversation, regardless of whether my heart felt it or not, I told my offender, “You hurt me, but I forgive you and I love you.” And one beautiful sunny morning, I said it and realized that there was no part of me that didn’t genuinely mean it, not even my heart!

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A book I just finished, Things You Save in a Fire, by Katherine Center, offers other tips for practicing forgiveness:

“Just saying the words ‘I forgive you,’ even to yourself, can be a powerful start…” “Forgiveness is about a mind-set of letting go… “It’s about acknowledging to yourself that someone hurt you, and accepting that… Then it’s about accepting that the person who hurt you is flawed, like all people are, and letting that guide you to a better, more nuanced understanding of what happened. … And then there’s a third part… that involves trying to look at the aftermath of what happened and find ways that you benefited, not just ways you were harmed.”

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I can imagine some people saying the above approaches and tips aren’t applicable to all situations, and I understand that reaction. All feelings are valid. It’s what we do with them, and what we let them do to us that matters. No one’s journey is exactly the same, and everyone’s journey unfolds at a different pace. However, these excerpts resonate with me. They’re applicable to my situation.

Lord, I invite you into the process of making these steps to forgiveness part of my life. Amen

Works cited

Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc. “Sunday 17 September 2023: Readings at Mass.” The New American Bible, 2001. Universalis for Windows, Version 2.181, Universalis Publishing Ltd., 8 Aug. 2023, https://universalis.com/n-app-windows.htm.

Center, Katherine. Things You Save in a Fire. Kindle edition, St. Martin’s Press, 13 Aug. 2019.

Thibodeaux, Mark E. God, I Have Issues: 50 Ways to Pray No Matter How You Feel, Kindle edition, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2005.