The gospels of last Sunday and this Sunday turn around relationships and more concretely around forgiveness.
Last Sunday, the issue was “If your brother sins against you…”
Your brother:
He or she is your brother or sister; we are children of the same Father, and brothers/sisters of the elder brother, Christ.
This sets the context.
This Sunday, the teaching goes further. Evidently Peter pondered what he heard last week and asks a question that burns in his heart; that burns in our hearts too.
“How often must I forgive?”
There is no must in the Greek text, only a future: “how often shall I forgive?”
Forgiveness, pardon is something difficult for us, for any person, even the humblest. And so, we look for a light that can guide us. Let us look at the etymology: pardon, forgiveness means what is given completely. What is given completely?
Pardon, forgiveness supposes an equality between 2 persons; in forgiveness, from the side of the one who forgives as well as from the side of the one who receives forgiveness, there is acknowledgement of a total equality, i.e the sharing of a common nature or condition. Forgiveness supposes that there is not a superior one standing over an inferior one whom he spares. No, there are 2 human beings who know that they are together weak and decide to combine their fragility for a better human situation; this situation is ever precarious. We know it well in our community life. We all have the experience of misfortune and fault, wrongs suffered and wrongs committed intertwined in ways that are often incomprehensible.
Maybe the key is to be aware of this wrong suffered and we will understand how we do the same for the other: wrong committed. The one who welcomes her wounded self rather than hurting it in turn is able to let go the wrong and become free interiorly, so that life prevails over the death that makes evil reign.
Let us come back to the gospel:
Jesus gives a parable to help widen our understanding.
“Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go”;
This is the real meaning of forgiveness: the Greek word for forgiveness: letting go, letting go the offense and the offender, losing our grip on what happened.
It is what the master does.
It is the same verb found in the gospel of last Sunday, the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, A. Mt 18: 18:
“Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven”
Whatever you let go in earth will be let go in heaven. What such a responsibility, a task, a participation of God’s real nature!
But the debtor of huge amount is not connected to his own situation, and to receiving mercy, he refuses mercy to his other debtor, to his brother in a human condition who owes him a ridiculously small debt. It is a clear example of projection: because he is not in touch with his human condition, with his own heart with the wrong he did, he becomes harder in his relationship with his brother who did a lesser offense.
Jesus, the Suffering Servant of Is 52-53 opened another way: he refuses to give into the trap of evil. He prefers the path of forgiveness that lets go of evil by refusing both to internalize it and to assign responsibility to the mis-doers. Following Jesus, we have this power, to let go of the offense and to let go of the offender, get out from a wrong culpability and discover a new liberty in us and in each relationship.
Habakuk (1: 13) the prophet exclaims: “Your eyes are too pure to see evil”.
Let us remember this insight from a Japanese movie doer:
“You have to wash your eyes before each glance”.
Letting go of all that is between me and the other that prevents us from being free and fully human, I decide to love. Loving in truth in absolute respect of the other is not easy. Loving in a way that is not tainted by manipulation, abuse of power or hypocrisy is difficult; it is a journey, a journey Christ calls us to take by our willingness to forgive.
Sr. Claire Bouttin, Superior
(Chapter Talk, 24th Sunday OT A
September 13, 2026)
Sirach 27:30-28:7
Psalm 102: 1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12
Romans 14:7-9
Matthew 18: 21-35
