How
could someone sin against you 77 times?!
Peter
must have been surprised by Jesus’ answer.
He’s
wondering if forgiving someone 7 times might be more than enough.
And
Jesus comes back with 77 times!
Seventy-seven
times is
a little hard to imagine.
But,
I guess family and those who are closest to us do get that many
opportunities.
And
Jesus says we’re supposed to forgive them—from the heart no less—
All
77 times.
If
that
seems like a lot,
According
to some translations, Jesus says “7 times
70 times.”
By
my math that’s 490.
How
can we possibly forgive someone who sins against us that often?
These
seem like impossibly high numbers when we view ourselves as the
forgiver.
But
when we look at it from the other side—
How
often we want God
to forgive us,
Forgiving
490 times doesn’t seem too often at all.
At
just one sin a week, we'd use up all 490 Forgivings in less than 10
years.
We’d
have to hope that St. Luke was more accurate in quoting Jesus:
You
must forgive your brother if he sins against you seven
times a day!
Now
we're getting closer to the number we need for ourselves.
This
isn’t really a math exercise.
But
it’s an idea worth thinking about in those terms.
The
Jews often used the number seven in a more symbolic sense.
In
this case, Peter meant many, many times.
And
Jesus meant – take that number and multiply it many times over.
Basically
he meant we must forgive “always”.
Or
an infinite number of times.
As
people who pray and who come to Mass,
We're
constantly reminded of the critical importance of forgiveness.
Not
only through Jesus' many repeated urgings in the Gospel,
But
every time we pray:
Forgive
us our trespasses as we forgive
those who trespass against us.
As
forgivers, the idea of infinite forgiveness seems hard to live with.
But
as sinners, the idea of infinite forgiveness would be hard to live
without.
3rd Tuesday of Lent
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