FORGIVING IS NOT GOODNESS BUT A SIGN OF CHARITY AND DIVINE JUSTICE

«I forgive him for exploiting me, ruined, humiliated. I forgive him everything, because I loved". With these words Eleonora Duse called "the muse", summarizes his tormented relationship with Gabriele D'Annunzio, his only love of life, from a secular and humanistic point of view.

 

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Dear Readers of the Island of Patmos,

one of the most difficult teachings of Jesus to accept is that on forgiveness. When we are wronged, indeed, we more easily remember the person who committed it, generating a division and a total detachment between us and her. It's a totally natural feeling of revenge. This is why Jesus asks us to go further. And there are those who make this teaching of Jesus their own. For example:

«I forgive him for exploiting me, ruined, humiliated. I forgive him everything, because I loved".

With these words Eleonora Duse called "the muse", summarizes his tormented relationship with Gabriele D'Annunzio, his only love of life, from a secular point of view and humanistic.

Forgiveness is one of the main cores of Christianity, as we saw on summer Sundays; the Lord often decides to offer parables to convey important concepts. The parable of the evil servant explains in narrative form a beautiful theme of Jesus' message. We find the summary at the beginning of the article evangelical song of today.

«Jesus answered Peter: “I don't tell you until seven times, but up to seventy times seven"".

The number seven evoked by Jesus and led to its maximization (seventy times seven) it is not a random number for the Jewish mentality in which Jesus lived. In fact, it represents fullness, the seventh day on which God rested, the seven ritual sprinklings with blood (Lv 4,6-17; 8,11; Nm 19,4; 2Re 5,10); the immolation of seven animals (Nm 28,11; This 45,23; Gb 42,8; 2Color 29,21), the seven angels (Tb 12,15); the seven eyes on the stone (Zc 3,9). But Jesus especially mentions seven and seventy in reference to the prophet Daniel (Dn 9,2-24), in which seventy weeks are mentioned. Simplifying we can say that according to the prophet these seventy weeks will end on the day of salvation, because in its own way, seventy times seven, it is an infinite number. So here is Jesus, in summary, affirms the presence of the fullness of the Lord's salvation, through the forgiveness that He, the God-man, gives to men.

The parable of the wicked servant narrates a situation of injustice: the same servant who was forgiven a huge debt - practically impossible to cover in a lifetime by the standards of the time - does not offer the same forgiveness for a smaller debt, before which the master becomes severe in the face of a lack of love and justice towards his neighbor. The center of the dynamic of forgiveness is contained in this: learn to offer an act of love to another sinner. Just like we are forgiven and ask God for forgiveness, in the confessional and when we recite the Our father.

Forgiving is the extreme act of love and the most difficult: because it frees the sinner from the anger and sadness that we can bring him following a sin suffered, freeing ourselves from the memory of those wrongs. And that's why it's hard to forgive: it is a spiritual and existential journey that requires time at the same time, patience, prayer and above all the grace of the Lord. Grace, indeed, it helps us imitate Jesus who forgives his tormentors while on the cross.

We ask for the Lord's help to learn to be sinners who ask for and grant forgiveness, we ask for the seven gifts of the Spirit, because in welcoming others we can see the very meaning of the love of charity and love until the end.

Amen!

Santa Maria Novella in Florence, 16 September 2023

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