Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time/A
Massimo Palombella
In today’s Gospel (Mt 18:21–35), when Peter asks how many times one must forgive, Jesus replies: ‘not seven times, but seventy-seven times’: ἕως ἑβδομηκοντάκις ἑπτά (héōs hebdomēkontákis heptá). Clearly, this is not the introduction of a new numerical limit, but rather the removal of forgiveness from every form of calculation: one must forgive always.
Once again, Jesus challenges us and questions us not simply about a particular course of action, but about the fundamental disposition of our lives. To be capable of forgiving ‘always’ is not merely a matter of occasional ascetic effort or good will; it is the fruit of a process of maturation in which I gradually learn to make certain ‘separations’, to move ‘beyond’, and thus to arrive at the truth of who I am.
In this respect, the verb Matthew uses to express forgiveness is particularly significant: ἀφίημι (aphíēmi). It certainly means ‘to forgive’ or ‘to remit’, but it also carries the sense of letting go, releasing, no longer holding on. To forgive, therefore, does not mean erasing what has happened, denying the wound, or calling good what was evil; rather, it means refusing to allow that wound to continue indefinitely to determine my present.
The difficulty of forgiving, resentment, anger, the desire for revenge — as the First Reading recalls with striking lucidity (Sir 27:30–28:9) — often bring to light relationships far older than the particular offence I am presently experiencing: primal, sometimes ancestral relationships; dimensions of my own history that have not yet found their proper place, been traversed, ‘forgiven’, or moved beyond.
It is also striking that the same verb, ἀφίημι (aphíēmi), reappears with an apparently different meaning at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, when the disciples, called by Jesus, ἀφέντες τὰ δίκτυα (aphéntes tà díktya), ‘leaving their nets’, follow him (Mk 1:18). Perhaps forgiveness has something to do precisely with this: leaving the nets. Separating myself from what I continue to hold on to and which, precisely because I hold on to it, ultimately holds me fast; relinquishing what imperceptibly keeps me confined within horizons that are no longer truly mine, so that at last I may taste that ‘life in abundance’ of which Jesus speaks (Jn 10:10).
It is no coincidence that the Gospel ends by bringing everything back to the deepest place within the human person: ἀπὸ τῶν καρδιῶν ὑμῶν (apò tō̂n kardiō̂n hymō̂n), ‘from your heart’ (Mt 18:35). Evangelical forgiveness, then, is not primarily a formula uttered with the lips, but something that must slowly reach the heart and transform it.
To forgive ‘always’ is therefore a challenge that entails accepting a path that is far from easy, made up of steps forward and also of steps backwards. A ‘slow’ process, like all that is true and authentic in our lives. Perhaps the point is not immediately to cease feeling the wound, but gradually to reach the point where I no longer allow the wound itself to decide who I am and how I am to live.
The Gradual for today’s celebration is drawn from Psalm 121 (Ps 121:1, 7), with the following text: Laetatus sum in his quae dicta sunt mihi: in domum Domini ibimus.
Fiat pax in virtute tua: et abundantia in turribus tuis.
(I rejoiced at what was said to me: we shall go into the house of the Lord.
May there be peace within your walls, and abundance within your towers).
The accompanying music, in Gregorian chant, is taken from the Graduale Triplex, published at Solesmes in 1979. The performance is by the Nova Schola Gregoriana, conducted by Alberto Turco. The recording may be found on the CD Adorate Deum. Gregorian Chant From the Proper of the Mass, issued by Naxos Japan in 1993.
A blessed Sunday and heartfelt greetings.
