Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?” “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!” – Matthew 18:21-22 NLT

Today’s Gospel story is subtitled in the New Living Translation, “The Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor.”

I begin many posts that I don’t publish. I start to write on a topic, usually a Bible verse or many, and several sentences in, I stop writing the post I started and begin another one, or altogether abandon writing that day. There is a growing list of these abandoned drafts that I often imagine I will return to one day, and save or delete after giving them another look. I have found that’s one feature of blog writing that I have really loved over time, being able to give an issue some thought and then being able to put aside that issue; sometimes it seems I am truly finished thinking about that issue once and for all.

But I’m not.

I find that, when I leave a “draft” unfinished, titled or untitled, and it gets added to “the list of the unfinished”, I do go back to many drafts sometime later and look at them again. I open up the post and give it some thought. If it’s been titled and I’ve written many words, I give it even more than average thought. I find I still have some attachment to the words I chose to write that day.

Today, when I read Jesus’ Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor, I think about another list that, over these years of my life, I’ve saved, and open from time to time. It’s that list of the debts I feel I am owed, the ones I have a pile of somewhere, the offenses I feel someone else made against me. I find it is also a list I seem to have an attachment to.

I often think I have done the work I need to do to let an offense go. I think I have totally and absolutely forgiven someone of some wrong I perceived was done to me, but I have found that at times in my life, I open the list again and the offense is often still there, buried maybe, but still there.

How can we truly and finally forgive someone else?

As a Catholic, we have available to us a beautiful sacrament called Reconciliation. When I was a child, I was taught that this sacrament was called Penance, and while penance for our own sins was definitely a part of the process of forgiveness, the name Reconciliation is, for me, much closer to describing the eventual outcome of receiving the sacrament. As an adult, when I have entered the process of Reconciliation, I have confessed my own sins in true sorrow for them, and received God’s Mercy, His Forgiveness, in return. I feel reconciled to God, my Father, my Creator. I have felt a freeing cleansing unlike anything else I have ever felt.

I understand that God gave us this sacrament of forgiveness because of our need for it, our need to be forgiven. ^“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results”. – James 5:16 (NLT) When we confess our sins, we can experience powerful healing.

But this Bible verse tells us that we need to pray for each other. And today’s Gospel story goes further. Jesus tells his apostle Peter that we should keep forgiving someone who sins against us. Jesus is telling us that the perceived offenses against us will keep coming, “seventy times seven!” (Matthew 18:22). And He is telling us that we need to keep forgiving, “seventy times seven!” (Matthew 18:22).

So , again, I ask myself that question, How? How do I finally forgive another?

What is Jesus’ answer? Keep praying for them.

Jesus did not just give lip service to this command. Jesus did as He Himself told us to do.

As Jesus hung dying on the Cross for all of us, He was ridiculed, mocked and spit on by many who looked on, those whose actions put Him there. Others who loved Him fled, who unfortunately we are more like than we want to believe. As He took His last breaths there, He did not give in to anger and judgement. What did He do in those last moments of His life? He prayed for the ones who nailed Him to the Cross. He asked His Father to forgive them.

“Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.'” – Luke 23:34

Sit quietly for a few minutes. Place yourself there on that hill, watching Jesus dying, and hear His words as He prays for His enemies. He prays for all of us.

I need to keep working at deleting that list. I need to pray and keep praying, for my family and friends, for strangers, for my enemies. And I need to pray for my own sins and ask forgiveness from God for them. I need to ask for the help of Jesus to do this.

What an amazing Savior we have.

Dear God,

Only You are Worthy of my praise. Thank You for Your Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thank You for Your Blessed Word, which teaches me to continue to pray for all others. Because as I truly forgive and empty myself of anger and judgement, You can fill me with Your Blessed Light, the Lord Jesus Christ, so that I can receive Your Healing and even give Your Light Jesus to others. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

In Jesus Precious Name I pray, Amen