So will my heavenly Father do to you,unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart. - Matt 18:35
Friends, God is good all the time!
The Christian life is about one thing, living for the Lord. St Paul is explicit on this idea, "None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's, he says. To live for a person implies that we honor them by doing what the things that will please them. Paul's clarification of the reason Christians live for Christ is that "Christ died and came to life, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living."
Consequently, if Christ died to forgive us, then we act considering the demands he places on us. Regarding this, Jesus tells us not to set any limit on forgiveness. If someone advances ideas, you find it challenging to comprehend, you ask for clarification, don't you? Peter sought clarification after Jesus' teaching about forgiveness in Matt18: 15-20 placed the burden of reconciliation on the offended person to approach the offender and make known the offense with the view of winning back the person. Peter suggests forgiving seven times maximum considering some rabbinical interpretation of Amos 2:1 that forgiving seven times is the divine ceiling, and Jesus' statement in Luke 17:4(refer to the two passages). Still, Jesus' answer was "not seven times but seventy-seven times" (Matt 18: 22). The illustration story is even interesting. The man who failed to let go of a little debt after a huge one was written off didn't only lose the master's compassion but also incurred his wrath and its severe ramification of being thrown into jail.
It is an indiscretion for us Christians to look for the minimum duty towards others. As W.F. Adeney has said, "When we ask how far we must go, with how little will God be satisfied, we betray a spirit out of sympathy with our duty. If we loved it, we should not anxiously search for the line of obligation; we should rather press on to the utmost with an enthusiastic desire to do our best." The Christian doesn't bargain with God when it comes to the things he needs. Human beings falter all the time so that we all need a constant pardon from God. If so, then we don't set a limit on how much we should forgive others.
Understand that the character of forgiveness is God-like. God is forgiving; what does the responsorial Psalm tell us? "Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion" (Ps 108:8). For the forgiveness of the world, he sent his son to die for us. Would you consider the forgiveness obtained from the atoning death of the son of God limited? No, it's limitless.
But why do we find it hard to forgive? The reason is telling; it is anger. When dared by her husband during an altercation, a woman ran a knife through his heart because of anger. Imagine that at the end of our lives because we were adamant at forgiving others, God says no to us for being in heaven. It will be too late for reconciliation. Sirach says in the first reading:Remember your last days, set enmity aside, remember death and decay, and cease from sin! Think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor, remember the Most High's covenant, and overlook faults (Sirach 28:6-7).
Prayer blessings: Father, you've opened the gate of mercy for us, help us to enter it, and give others the chance to enter it as well. Amen.