Daily Reflection Wednesday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s readings illustrate both intimate and life-giving ways to show love and forgiveness. We have followed Moses through thick and thin as he leads the Israelites from servile bondage to the land of freedom. We witness the Israelites who are faithful, then rebellious, then faithful, then back to rebellion.

Doesn’t this pattern resemble our own relationship with God? Since each of us is a collection of good and bad habits—and we will have these until we are in a coffin or an urn—we signify our need for God and for each other. We say, “I support and lift you up in your sinful self, and you do the same for me.” When Moses’ people rebel because they feel that God is asking too much of them, Moses counsels and encourages them to obey and reconcile with each other. Moses himself was a flawed person. We have witnessed his own sin in the book of Deuteronomy. Yet, he loved God, and God loved him.

    In today’s gospel, Jesus is asking us to be patient with one another, to forgive one another. Forgiveness is a universal theme throughout biblical history, throughout humankind. Why is it so difficult to forgive someone who has hurt our feelings, our reputation, our very persona? Undoubtedly, it is because our ego is wounded—that part of us we do not want to relinquish. In instructing his disciples, of course, Jesus is instructing us. All of his teachings revert to one request embodied in the two great commandments: “Love God with your whole heart, whole mind, whole soul, and your neighbor as yourself.” Maybe the problem is that we don’t love ourselves the way God loves us. We focus too much on what we don’t have instead of focusing on what we do possess: God who loves us unconditionally and personally—yes, a personal relationship with God. In writing a book on forgiveness, Greg Boyle, SJ, emphasizes to “forgive everyone everything.” Jesus has given us a tremendous responsibility: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” Is that not the dynamic of forgiveness?

    We cannot live our lives alone. I respect how you struggle to overcome your sin; you respect my struggle. In so much of his preaching, Jesus encourages the community that God created: differences in physical appearances, lifestyles, faith traditions, personalities. God also has given us the grace to see good, virtue, talent in everyone. 



“God comes to everyone offering forgiveness and mercy. Living in his reign means setting in motion a dynamic of reciprocal forgiveness and compassion. Jesus doesn’t know any other way to live.”

                                                                         --Jose A. Pagola  (Jesus, an Historical Approximation)