It took me a while to digest this topic, longer than ever. As always, I began with reading the Gospel. Then I heard it read during Sunday Mass. Thoughts gathered – and then dispersed. Than started to float around, disjointed.
An Examination of Conscience
The first reaction to the Gospel is instinctive – “do I forgive? Have I forgiven all who ever wronged me – or – worse – mine? Am I a forgiving person? Always?” That approach led me to reviewing various unpleasant events in my life which I had forgotten or pushed out of memory.
Not a good idea to look into one’s past too closely on the last sunny weekend of Canadian fall with empty jars on the kitchen counter waiting for pickles, whole box of them. Work and various family duties keep me on the go almost all the time. With a bit of practice, however, it is possible to do examination of conscience while peeling potatoes for big family dinner or when vacuuming. So now, while filling these jars, I look back into my past. “Have I forgiven all?”
To Forgive and to be Forgiven
I conclude with cheerful “no, I do not think I have any hidden hatreds in my heart”… and at that moment I am an inch from feeling (secretly of course) proud of myself when a thought comes “Am I myself forgiven? have I myself asked forgiveness all those I have wronged?” All the past great and small sins shoot through my memory like burning meteorites. Each of them had made a hit, each scarred someone, some probably burrowed deep into tender hearts – and who knows, maybe stayed within, festering? “Am I forgiven?”
Another problem. So many people I have hurt are already on the other side of our human existence, beyond the horizon of life. How can I tell my Granny that I am still sorry that I was rude to her that one time? How can I apologize to Aunt Helen that I visited her only once when she lay in hospital with her last illness? To Don, our old friend, whose many phone calls remained unanswered? I still see him on the hospital bed, too weak to speak. He was “dialling” a non existent rotary phone to tell me how he tried to contact me – and I had failed him.
Clouds gather across the sunny skies… and unexpectedly I am on verge of desperation.
To include Jesus
My eyes wander aimlessly around the kitchen area and suddenly they notice a small cross above the entrance. A thought strikes me – my thinking about all this is totally pagan… I have excluded Jesus from it all. I think about both the forgiving and the forgiveness as if He did not exist, as if He had not died for my sins and earned forgiveness for me with His death. As if the Holy Spirit could not enlighten even me.
So back to square one, to the story in the Gospel. I must see myself as the man owing ten thousand talents to his Master. I cannot repay such incredible sum and the Master is within his right if he sells me and my family into slavery. It is my squandering of the wealth which belongs to the Master – everything I have I got from Him – that sets the chain reaction of cause and effect. Knowing I am doomed – and so is my family – I beg Master’s forgiveness. I even add that I will return everything I owe to the last penny, although as I say these words, I know it is totally impossible.
The key to the real freedom
Yet He forgives me and even does not want the repayment, any repayment at all!.
If I were sincere (and not simply cunning) in my pleas for mercy, I will trust and love my Master with my whole being and I’ll dwell on this incredible act of mercy day and night. The perpetual joy will make me not only forgive the lesser debt of my fellow – servant but also to give him a gift. I will embrace him and I’ll say “The Lord has forgiven so much – please do not mention that small sum, it is forgotten already. And here is my golden ring for you to wear so that we both remember this glorious day”.
It seems that remembering how much God has forgiven us, (and not how much we forgive others) is the key to the door of real freedom. Without that key we are lost.
And one thought more – it is possible to ask forgiveness of those who already passed away – I do it all the time. Remember the “communion of saints”? My Grandma has heard my “I am sorry, Granny” so many times… and so has Aunt Helen. And also Don – and all those I have failed over long 70 years of my life.
Maria Kozakiewicz (a wife, mother, mother -in-law, grandmother, teacher, Classicist)