24th Sunday of the Year, Year A

Readings http://www.pcentral-online.net/catholic/lectionary/24th-sunday-a.html


"Not seven times; I say, seventy times seven times."


The theme of the gospel for the 24th Sunday of the Year, is God's
mercy and forgiveness. The gospel begins with Peter asking Jesus
a question: "how many times must I forgive my brother, seven
times?" Jesus replied, "Not seven times; I say, seventy times
seven times." Then, Jesus goes on to tell the parable of the
merciless servant. In this parable, a servant owed his master a
large debt of money. When his master asked that he pay the debt,
the servant pleaded for mercy. The master pitied the servant and
wrote off the debt. But then this servant went to another fellow
servant who also owed him an amount of money. But when his fellow
servant could not pay, the merciless servant had him put in jail.
When the others saw this happen, they reported it to their master.
The master of the merciless servant got very angry with the servant
and handed him over to the torturers - for he was shown mercy but
did not practice it with his fellow servant.


When St. Stephen the deacon, one of the early Christian martyrs,
was about to be stoned to death by his accusers, he forgave them
for what they would do to him. Many of the Christian martyrs also
did the same - forgiving those who were to put them to death. This
is certainly in imitation to the forgiving and merciful nature of
Jesus, who, despite all the physical sufferings he endured from
his torturers, forgave them all. Jesus knew that they did not know
what they were doing.


In the passages of the Wisdom books in the Old Testament, it is
said: "do not repay evil for the evil done upon you. Rather, let
vengeance be upon the Lord's hands, for He will always vindicate
the just. It is but a human reflex and an instinct for self
preservation to hit back when we are harmed. This is a base desire
in our being human. But Jesus was sent to us by the Father so
that we will share in His divinity - especially, that of being able
to forgive those who have caused us pain or evil. We can be able
to imitate Jesus in this sense, when we begin to have greater faith
in Him and His teaching. Just as He forgave those who nailed Him
to the cross, God's justice vindicated Him and He was raised to
life again in the power of the Holy Spirit. So, whenever we have
experienced an injustice, or we have been badly mistreated and
hurt, let us pray for the gift of Christ's humility and patience,
and imagine placing ourselves at the foot of the Cross where Jesus
was nailed. Just as our Master was vindicated for his being
merciful, forgiving and just, so shall we share in the blessing
Jesus received from the Father, if we learn to forgive and be
merciful like Jesus.

In the gospel for the 23rd Sunday of the Year, we will learn of two
sayings of Jesus: one on fraternal correction, and the other on the
power of united prayer. If we were to refer this teachings of
Jesus to how He Himself lived what He preached, then we may obtain
insights into what He really meant by these two sayings.


As we read the gospel of Matthew, especially in the previous
chapters where Jesus is increasingly being set against the
Pharisees, he was already correcting the people's understanding
of what the Law in essence meant: the spirit of love, humility and
mercy should be above the Law. And He made this point through the
teaching of parables - like the parable of the lost sheep (Mt
18:10-14) and the parable of the merciless official (Mt 18:21-35).
As for the saying of Jesus as regards prayer, we know that in the
early chapters of the gospel of Matthew (in the Sermon on the
Mount), Jesus taught His disciples how to pray with the "Our
Father" - a prayer which we can infer Jesus Himself prayed and
which truly expresses our being of one spiritual family, asking
God for what we daily need, and seeking God's mercy for our sins.


In these two sayings of Jesus, Jesus is helping us to understand
that part of being His follower requires us to take responsibility
for our brothers and sisters who are in error, most especially
those who are in a morally wrong situation in life. This is
indeed difficult. The power of our good example is easier to
do, than to speak and preach and teach as Jesus and the prophets
did. But according to the saying of Jesus, we can only win our
brother or sister's heart when what we teach them as morally
right, can be backed up by a life that is also morally upright
and righteous like Jesus. And this we cannot do alone. We also
need the help of others who are also good and morally upright,
and who sincerely desires to bring others to Christ. The best
form of obtaining the power of persuasiveness and of fraternally
correcting with charity and gentleness, is through the united
prayer we do in the Eucharistic celebrations. As one family in
God, we ask the Lord for the graces and the virtues necessary
to shepherd all those who are lost back into the fold of Jesus,
the Good Shepherd. We fraternally correct others as a Church;
and we get the power to do so through united prayer.