Nick was sitting in an RCIA class and found himself really struggling with what the catechist was teaching. The group was having a discussion about mercy and forgiveness, and the source of that discussion was a passage from the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus tells a parable in answer St Peter’s question: “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times?” 

What Nick kept thinking about while the class was going on was how he had been taken advantage of at the place where he had worked several years ago. He wasn’t there anymore, but the idea of forgiving those people who had lied to him and manipulated things so that the job he’d thought was coming to him ended up going to someone else (who actually had no qualifications at all for that particular position), was almost too much to consider. And yet that’s what the RCIA instructor seemed to be saying. As an aspiring Catholic, he thought to himself, am I supposed to forgive people like that? 

The catechist then quoted a passage from Sirach: “Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.” Nick had to admit that he was holding on to anger, and not just about that nasty work situation, but about other things that “had been done to him” over the years. Am I a sinner because I am holding on to these things and holding on to all of this anger?

I think there are many of us who think like Nick. There’s a particular situation that we have experienced that was so hurtful that forgiveness just seems impossible. And yet, at the same time are we hugging too tightly to the anger that we feel or are we trying to redirect it? If the Lord is asking us to be merciful, how can we begin to approach following this command?

Here’s something to consider: The only reason I can forgive, have mercy, be compassionate, perform a work of kindness, is that God has done these things toward me first. As we have been forgiven by God time and time again, so we must try to forgive others. 

     In the parable that Jesus tells, being unmerciful is the most serious sin, worthy of being condemned. “Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?” Mercilessness is really the enemy of Jesus’ call to us on how we are to live our life.

For Jesus, the mercy given to us must be poured out toward others. And we must pray for the grace to be able to do this. We are asked to forgive as God has forgiven us.   Here’s a great insight about this: 

“But as one who time and again is forgiven a debt that I cannot even begin to repay, I must necessarily also become one who time and again himself forgives. That I can be offended and wronged Jesus in no way denies. However, the fact is that I can forgive as God forgives, because I have already been forgiven an offense infinitely greater than any I can ever suffer. This reality transforms a condition of hurt and insult into an opportunity to imitate and participate in the very nature of God.

So, the ability to forgive the deepest hurts begins with a look at ourselves and what it is that Christ has done for me first. Mercy has been poured out to us, and we are to allow that flow of mercy to continue through us towards others—to channel that gift as the Lord deeply intends.