Dear Parish Family,

The third Sunday of September has been set aside by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as Catechetical Sunday. We began our Catholic religious education programs last Sunday and I am personally grateful to our Religious Education Teachers and Volunteers for their generosity.  I repeat to them the great promise of Jesus, “If you witness me before others, I will witness you to the Father.” What a sure promise of Eternal Life! Second to the celebrations of the sacraments, there is nothing more important than the formation of our children in our Catholic Faith. The Reading from Sirach sums up the goals of Catholic education: think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor (forgiveness), remember God’s sacred covenant and “overlook faults” or be patient with others. These are four great themes for Catholic education.

The Gospel narrative of this Sunday focuses on forgiveness. Forgiveness is a major ingredient of imitating God. People do not always do right, and we need to forgive them. This is the gift and the goal. Our culture has some pretty diverse understandings of what forgiveness means. For some it is a condescending act performed only by one person who is higher than another— a Superior or judge, who leans down to grant pardon. Or a boss, or a media star. For others it means “I can forgive but I can never forget.” Perhaps this means, I will remain angry forever but will never act upon it. Such a stance includes an uncomfortable attitude: “I will choke back my hurt and anger by a sheer act of the will. I may have been attacked by someone, but I will suppress my reaction.”

On Easter Sunday of 1960, the great seer of truth and lover of God, Dag Hammarskjold, wrote an interpretation of forgiveness thus: Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who ‘forgives’ you—out of love—takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore, always entails a sacrifice. You absorb these sacrifices, out of love. In the story that Jesus narrates, the master forgave the debtor “an impossible to repay sum.” The master then asks the forgiven servant, “Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?”
Underneath this plea lies the principle of ‘breaking the chain of causality.’ The real motivation for forgiveness is gratitude based on love. If someone has had pity on me out of love, then my authentic reaction will be deep appreciation. I will want to pass the gift on. Especially if it is God who has forgiven me, I will want to pass on to someone else the liberation I have received. Especially if that person has hurt me.

So can we halt the chain of causality and pass forward love instead of hate? At every Eucharist, we are forgiven and given the power to forgive others. In the final analysis in NOT breaking the chain of causality (‘un-forgiveness’) we hurt ourselves multiple times and with greater intensity. Forgiveness is the greatest gift we give to ourselves.

Fr. Tom Kunnel C.O.