Beginning with Forgiveness

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today contrast our comfort with repetition of rules of behaviour with the challenge of knowing deeper love through giving and accepting forgiveness.

Road to Forgiveness

The reading from the Book of Joshua describes Crossing the Jordan

* [3:15] Season of the harvest: toward the end of March and the beginning of April, when the barley and other crops that grew during the rainy season of winter were reaped. The crossing took place “on the tenth day of the first month” of the Hebrew year, which began with the first new moon after the spring equinox; cf. 4:19. At this time of the year the Jordan would be swollen as a result of the winter rains and the melting snow of Mount Hermon.

* [3:16] Some scholars have suggested that this account may reflect an annual ritual reenactment of the event near the sanctuary of Gilgal. (Joshua, CHAPTER 3 | USCCB, n.d.)

Psalm 114 celebrates Israel’s escape from Egypt.

* [Psalm 114] A hymn celebrating Israel’s escape from Egypt, journey through the wilderness, and entry into the promised land, and the miracles of nature that bore witness to God’s presence in their midst. In the perspective of the Psalm, the people proceed directly from Egypt into the promised land (Ps 114:1–2). Sea and Jordan, which stood like soldiers barring the people from their land, flee before the mighty God as the earth recoils from the battle (Ps 114:3–4). The poet taunts the natural elements as one taunts defeated enemies (Ps 114:5–6). (Psalms, PSALM 114 | USCCB, n.d.)

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.

* [18:21–35] The final section of the discourse deals with the forgiveness that the disciples are to give to their fellow disciples who sin against them. To the question of Peter how often forgiveness is to be granted (Mt 18:21), Jesus answers that it is to be given without limit (Mt 18:22) and illustrates this with the parable of the unmerciful servant (Mt 18:23–34), warning that his heavenly Father will give those who do not forgive the same treatment as that given to the unmerciful servant (Mt 18:35). Mt 18:21–22 correspond to Lk 17:4; the parable and the final warning are peculiar to Matthew. That the parable did not originally belong to this context is suggested by the fact that it really does not deal with repeated forgiveness, which is the point of Peter’s question and Jesus’ reply.

* [18:22] Seventy-seven times: the Greek corresponds exactly to the LXX of Gn 4:24. There is probably an allusion, by contrast, to the limitless vengeance of Lamech in the Genesis text. In any case, what is demanded of the disciples is limitless forgiveness.

* [18:24] A huge amount: literally, “ten thousand talents.” The talent was a unit of coinage of high but varying value depending on its metal (gold, silver, copper) and its place of origin. It is mentioned in the New Testament only here and in Mt 25:14–30.

* [18:26] Pay you back in full: an empty promise, given the size of the debt.

* [18:28] A much smaller amount: literally, “a hundred denarii.” A denarius was the normal daily wage of a laborer. The difference between the two debts is enormous and brings out the absurdity of the conduct of the Christian who has received the great forgiveness of God and yet refuses to forgive the relatively minor offenses done to him.

* [18:34] Since the debt is so great as to be unpayable, the punishment will be endless.

* [18:35] The Father’s forgiveness, already given, will be withdrawn at the final judgment for those who have not imitated his forgiveness by their own. (Matthew, CHAPTER 18 | USCCB, n.d.)

Tom Lenz comments that Matthew’s Gospel has gotten him thinking more deeply about sin and forgiveness, in general. Growing up Catholic the notion of sin was (and still is) a “hot button” issue that has lots of charged emotions associated with it.

So, as I think about the notion of sin and the essential fundamental nature of connectedness, it helps me understand both sin and forgiveness. Sin, in whatever context, seems to make sense as an intentional movement away, while love in an intentional movement towards. When we sin, we have intentionally chosen to not be connected to another person, nature, or to ourselves. We no longer allow the flow of Love through the connectedness and therefore disconnect ourselves from God that exists in all things. But when we forgive, we open (or reopen) the flow of Love through our intentional connectedness. Through forgiveness we consciously make the decision to connect with the other and allow our hearts to again give and receive the Love that is God. This is why seventy-seven times (infinity) is the answer from Jesus to Peter. To do anything less would be to cut off the flow of Love/God within, between, and among us. (Lenz, 2025)

Don Schwager quotes “How often shall I forgive?” by Hilary of Poitiers (315-367 AD).

"When Peter asked him whether he should forgive his brother sinning against him up to seven times, the Lord replied, 'Not up to seven times but up to seventy times seven times'" In every way he teaches us to be like him in humility and goodness. In weakening and breaking the impulses of our rampant passions he strengthens us by the example of his leniency, by granting us in faith pardon of all our sins. For the vices of our nature did not merit pardon. Therefore all pardon comes from him. In fact, he pardons even those sins that remain in one after confession. The penalty to be paid through Cain was established at sevenfold, but that sin was against a man, against his brother Abel, to the point of murder (Genesis 4:8). But in Lamech the penalty was established at seventy times seven times (Genesis 4:24), and, as we believe, the penalty was established on those responsible for the Lord's Passion. But the Lord through the confession of believers grants pardon for this crime. By the gift of baptism he grants the grace of salvation to his revilers and persecutors. How much more is it necessary, he shows, that pardon be returned by us without measure or number. And we should not think how many times we forgive, but we should cease to be angry with those who sin against us, as often as the occasion for anger exists. Pardon's frequency shows us that in our case there is never a time for anger, since God pardons us for all sins in their entirety by his gift rather than by our merit. Nor should we be excused from the requirement of giving pardon that number of times [i.e., seventy times seven], since through the grace of the gospel God has granted us pardon without measure." (excerpt from ON MATTHEW 18.10) (Schwager, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler reflects on the texts of today. The Joshua reading tells of leading the people across the Jordan. In a parallel to leaving Egypt. God acts again with a miraculous deed. The Gospel addresses the question of “How often to forgive?” The perfect number, 7, and much more suggests there is no limit for forgiveness. Ignatius Loyola urges us to have the desire to forgive. Holding on to anger hurts ourselves. We forgive them because they need it. The parable tells of punishment for the servant who fails to forgive. Friar Jude asks “What gift of faith did they receive?” “Of the one who receives more, more is expected”.

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, describes how Paul’s understanding of Jesus’ death critiques both the conservatives and liberals of his day. Paul sees the Jews trying to create order in the world by obedience to law, tradition, and kinship ties. The Greeks attempt order through reason, understanding, logic, and education. Paul has a unique vantage point, with a foot in each world—as both a Jew and a Roman citizen.

Paul allows both conservatives and liberals to define wisdom in their own ways, yet he dares to call both inadequate and finally wrong. He believes that such worldviews will eventually fail people. He writes, “God has shown up human wisdom as folly” on the cross, and this is “an obstacle that the Jews cannot get over,” and which the gentiles or pagans think is simple “foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:21–23). 

For Paul, the code words for nondual thinking, or true wisdom, are “foolishness” and “folly.” He says, in effect, “My thinking is foolishness to you, isn’t it?” Admittedly, it does not make sense unless we have confronted the mystery of the cross. Suffering, the “folly of the cross,” breaks down the dualistic mind. Why? Because on the cross, God took the worst thing, the killing of the God-human, and made it into the best thing, the very redemption of the world. The compassionate holding of essential meaninglessness or tragedy, as Jesus does on the cross, is the final and triumphant resolution of all the dualisms and dichotomies that we face in our own lives. We are thus “saved by the cross”! Does that now make ultimate sense?  (Rohr, n.d.)

We invoke the Spirit to assist as we ponder the paradox of forgiveness of those who have hurt us as the path to fullness of life in our journey.

References

Joshua, CHAPTER 3 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/joshua/3?7 

Lenz, T. (2025, August 14). Daily Reflection August 14, 2025 | Creighton Online Ministries. Creighton Online Ministries. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/daily-reflections/daily-reflection-august-14-2025 

Matthew, CHAPTER 18 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/18?21 

Psalms, PSALM 114 | USCCB. (n.d.). Daily Readings. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/114?1 

Rohr, R. (n.d.). The Mystery of the Cross. Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-mystery-of-the-cross/ 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). Lord, How Often Shall I Forgive My Brother? Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved August 14, 2025, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2025&date=aug14 

Witness to the Word

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today, the Feast of Saint John, Apostle and evangelist, challenge us to grow in fellowship and experience the tension between the limited appreciation of life in Western culture and the Christian reality of the Word made flesh in Jesus.

The Word of Life

The reading from the First Letter of John testifies to the humanity of the Word of Life.

* [1:1–4] There is a striking parallel to the prologue of the gospel of John (Jn 1:1–18), but the emphasis here is not on the preexistent Word but rather on the apostles’ witness to the incarnation of life by their experience of the historical Jesus. He is the Word of life (1 Jn 1:1; cf. Jn 1:4), the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible (1 Jn 1:2; cf. Jn 1:14), and was heard, seen, looked upon, and touched by the apostles. The purpose of their teaching is to share that life, called fellowship…with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ, with those who receive their witness (1 Jn 1:3; Jn 1:14, 16).1 

Psalm 97 praises the Glory of God’s Reign.

* [Psalm 97] The hymn begins with God appearing in a storm, a traditional picture of some ancient Near Eastern gods (Ps 97:1–6); cf. Ps 18:8–16; Mi 1:3–4; Heb 3:3–15. Israel rejoices in the overthrowing of idol worshipers and their gods (Ps 97:7–9) and the rewarding of the faithful righteous (Ps 97:10–12).2

 

In the Gospel of John, human emotion and mystical experience surround the Resurrection of Jesus.

* [20:1–10] The story of the empty tomb is found in both the Matthean and the Lucan traditions; John’s version seems to be a fusion of the two.3

 

Eileen Wirth started a Bible reading exercise partially to see if she could plow through the Old Testament as she sought to discover if she really was a Christian.

By reading the entire Bible, I came to see that John and the other evangelists could not possibly have invented Jesus. There is simply no other comparable figure in history or literature. He was a real man from a certain time, place, and culture but his divine message is universal and universally demanding. Christians of every generation and culture can apply it to their circumstances. Reading the whole Bible made me a Christian in fact as well as name. Now the challenge is to live like one!4 

Don Schwager quotes “The Word of Life was seen and touched,” by Severus of Antioch (488-538 AD).

"Given that this same John also said, 'No one has ever seen God' (John 1:18, 1 John 1:4:12), how can he assure us that the living Word of Life has been seen and touched? It is clear that it was in his incarnate and human form that he was visible and touchable. What was not true of him by nature became true of him in that way, for he is one and the same indivisible Word, both visible and invisible, and without diminishing in either respect he became touchable in both his divine-human nature. For he worked his miracles in his divinity and suffered for us in his humanity." (excerpt from CATENA)5

 

The Word Among Us Meditation on 1 John 1:1-4 comments that the Greek word for fellowship, koinonia, means participation in a life and a mission that knits people closely together. St. John, whose feast we celebrate today, knew how important this koinonia was because he had experienced it firsthand, both with the other apostles and with Jesus himself.

Fellowship is a gift that God wants all of us to experience and to share with other people. So on his feast day, honor St. John by finding one small way to deepen your experience of fellowship with someone. Tell that person you are praying for them, or reach out to thank a friend who has supported you in the past. Jesus came to give us an abundant life—and that includes walking together with fellow travelers on the road to heaven! “Jesus, show me ways I can experience deeper fellowship with someone you have placed in my life.”6 

Peter Edmonds SJ, a member of the Jesuit community in Stamford Hill, North London, guides us through the evangelist’s unique narrative and encourages us to read the whole of this ‘religious classic’ for ourselves.

It is fitting that we read this gospel during Lent and Easter when we are at our best spiritually. It took time before this gospel was accepted in early Christianity. It was regarded as a dangerous gospel, to be handled with care, because it carried two main risks. It could lead to a neglect of the humanity of Christ, as if the divine Jesus was only pretending to be human. This is known as the heresy of Docetism. It could also lead disciples to claim they could not sin, because they have already undergone judgement in their encounters with the Christ whose glory they have seen. This is known as Gnosticism. These issues are addressed in the Letters of John, which are probably to be dated after the gospel. This writer ‘declared to you what we have seen and heard’ (1 John 1:3) and warned that ‘if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves’ (1 John 1:8). A true classic is a text to which we can return again and again, and always discover something new. Rarely indeed will we pick up the fourth gospel and not learn something fresh about the story, the theology and the drama which it contains. It was surely sound instinct and wisdom that led the Church from earliest times to adopt this gospel as its favourite pedagogical means to introduce the profound mysteries celebrated each year during Lent and Easter.7 

Friar Jude Wikler sees the contrast between the prologue in the Gospel of John and  the prologue in the First Letter of John as balancing Jesus' Divinity and humanity to counter Gnostic spiritual ideas. The Beloved Disciple is compelled by Love in the race to the tomb, yet Love yields to authority to allow Peter to enter first. Friar Jude suggests the Gospel shows a Beloved Disciple who sees and believes through Love and Peter who keeps the Commandments.

 

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, names some of the realities that have been “unveiled” in recent decades, as well as a reconciling path forward. Neither conservatives nor liberals are willing to carry the burden of living tentatively in a passing and imperfect world. So the contemporary choice offered most of us living in the West is between unstable correctness (liberals) and stable illusion (conservatives)! What a choice! It has little to do with real transformation in either case, because in each case we have manufactured our own false stability.

The Gospel accepts the essentially tragic nature of human existence; it is willing to bear the contradictions that are imprinted on all of reality. It will always be the road less traveled. Let’s call it “unstable stability!” But for some reason, it is the only real stability, because it is a truthful map of reality, and it is always the truth that sets us free. It is contact with Reality that finally heals us. And contemplation, quite simply, is meeting reality in its most simple, immediate, and paradoxical forms. It is the resolving of those seeming contradictions that characterizes the mystics, the saints, the prophets, and all those who pray. This liberation, this ability to hold the paradoxical nature of reality, liberates us from and for. It is the ultimate agreement to participate in the only world there is. True participation in paradox liberates us from our own control towers and for the compelling and overarching vision of the Reign of God—where there are no liberals or conservatives. Here, the paradoxes—life and death, success and failure, loyalty to what is and risk for what needs to be—do not fight with one another, but lie in an endless embrace. We must penetrate behind them—into the infinite mystery that holds all things together.8

 

The exploration of the Word made Flesh in the Gospel of John is an opportunity to be guided by the Spirit to a greater Reality than our culture of concrete facts permits.

 

References

1	(n.d.). 1 John, CHAPTER 1 | USCCB. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1john/1
2	(n.d.). Psalms, PSALM 97 | USCCB - Daily Readings. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/97
3	(n.d.). John, CHAPTER 20 | USCCB. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/20
4	(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections - Online Ministries. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/122721.html
5	(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2021&date=dec27
6	(n.d.). Mass Readings and Catholic Daily Meditations for December 27, 2021. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://wau.org/meditations/2021/12/27/277220/
7	(2014, March 21). Story, theology and drama in the Gospel of John | Thinking Faith. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/story-theology-and-drama-gospel-john
8	(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archive: 2021 - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://cac.org/kneeling-before-the-mystery-2021-12-27/