Twenty-Fourth Sunday kin Ordinary Time – Cycle A
Reflecting on Matthew 18: 21–35
Forgiveness. Can you imagine? This servant owed the king a “great amount,” so much so that it would require selling him, his wife, their children, and all their possessions in order to repay the debt. Imagine the countries of the world forgiving our staggering national debt. That’s the kind of mercy the king showed this debtor, who fell to his knees to beg for their lives.
But how can it be that the same debtor then went to find a servant who owed him a much lesser debt, and threw him in prison until he could repay him?
The king hears about this heartless act and, enraged, gives him over to torturers, who will torment him until his debt is paid. (Hmm…how does torture repay a debt?) But the parable we hear this weekend may be less about the retribution of God than it is about a state of soul so hardened that even a kind and compassionate God could not soften it.
The forgiven servant must have had a rock-hard heart, that he could be rescued from the very brink of catastrophe and not extend that grace to his own debtors.
There’s a popular phrase, whose origin is from of old: Memento Mori (remember that you must die.) So central is this admonition among hermetical communities like the Trappists and Benedictines that some seventeenth-century Capuchin communities decorated their chapels and cells with skeletons. One monastery placed this sign next to them: You are now what I once was, and what I am today you will one day be.
Remember your last days, set enmity aside (Sir. 28:6). Forgive everyone (including me, please). Do not go to God with anything standing in the way.
Is there anyone you still can’t quite forgive?