This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
Some people love to contrast the Old Testament and the New Testament, caricaturing God in the former as a meany and in the latter as a sweet guy who just loves to hug.
In reality, both Testaments feature a Creator who is not to be messed with, whose laws hold firm and bear eternal consequences, and yet who is also mind-blowingly merciful. He not only gives us second chances, He comes up with ingenious schemes to take the hit for His own laws and open doors that we have closed for ourselves. But we must opt for those second chances. We still must conform to His way, the way of our deeper and better nature, the way He created us to be.
In the face of the mistaken tendency to pit Old Testament and New Testament against each other, Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel is nothing but the first reading repeated, but in a beautiful, easily understood story–that is, in warm, human terms. He teaches what we hear summed up earlier in the Lord’s Prayer (cf. Mt. 6:9ff): “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The simple but tough lesson: God will not forgive us our sins if we do not forgive our brothers and sisters from our heart.
Of course, this does not necessarily mean that the wound does not still cause us pain. The though of the offending person can still cause us revulsion, even physical sickness. But we do not hatch plans or desire their suffering and destruction. We leave their welfare in God’s hands and even pray that He will given them what they need, conversion if necessary, to be happy with Him one day.
The contrary attitude is one of willingly harbored resentment, by which we actively choose to desire suffering and harm for the person who has offended us, out of “justice” in return for what they have done for us.
But what is it that causes us to cling to such desires, and stubbornly refuse to let them go? Ultimately, it is attachment of our heart to created things. Sin and spiritual imperfection come from our heart attaching itself to created things, whether those things are people or possessions, or more intangible things such as our own reputation. Spiritual perfection comes from a profound relationship with God whereby He truly is all we cling to as essential.
The soul with created attachments is at risk of the sin of resentment, of not forgiving, if another person ventures to interfere with the object of its attachment.
We may think of this as another of Jesus’ tough, challenging teachings–and it is. But there is also something beautiful in this teaching that we may take for granted, that we may overlook or fail to fully appreciate: If we do let go of ill desires for others, and thus forgive them from the heart, we have the joy and freedom of knowing that God does the same for us, even though our sin has taken a baseball bat to the very order of the cosmos, to the very underpinnings of our own nature. Even though, more importantly, our sin has spat in the face of the very author of these. God’s mercy inspires awe. We do not deserve it. And yet, it is right there at the fingertips of the person willing to let go of attachment to others’ offenses.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Contemplate God’s mercy. Think of His mercy in the face of your terrible sins, but also in the face of humankind’s wholesale rejection of Him. Ask Him to show you how to be merciful, like a father showing his five-year-old how to ride a bicycle. Ask Him to help you to attach your heart and your will more and more only to Him.
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