My Dear Brothers and Sisters,
All the parables in today’s Gospel – that perhaps were made up by Jesus himself – contain a clear lesson of hope and confidence in the infinite mercy of God in His dealings with us as human beings. We are all sinners in one way or another. We have all gone astray, gotten lost like the sheep and the coin in those stories sometime or other. What is worse, we are all capable of going astray from God again at any moment. If we had only the justice of God to deal with, we might well despair. Our chances of reaching heaven would be slight indeed.
However, in looking closely at the first reading, we definitely see the mercy of God. Even His people betrayed Him by worshipping a golden cow. God forgave them and called them back to His salvation. As St. Paul proclaims, God is our Father, full of mercy and compassion – God comes to save, not to destroy. God comes to call sinners, not the righteous. God comes to show mercy, not punishment. God comes to love, not to condemn. But we all have to show our repentance, conversion and forgiveness.
We are living in the world, where it is difficult to find the power of forgiveness nowadays. Needless to say, unforgiveness usually results in our quitting something the Lord wants us to continue, while forgiveness keeps it going on. If a husband or wife refuses to forgive their spouse, they may quit their marriage or at least quit trying in their marriage. If parents quit forgiving their children, they might easily quit parenting them. At best, they will just go through the motions.
In our society, unforgiveness is the main cause of divorce, abuse, dysfunction and neglect. When we quit forgiving 70 times seven, we quit giving, loving and trying. Eventually, we quit life and eternal life. If we quit forgiving one person, we quit our relationship with the Lord, because we pray in the Our Father that He forgive us as we forgive others. We must forgive as the father of the prodigal son did, or we will be like his older unforgiving son. Forgive — or risk quitting life, love, and God. Turn to God today with a truly contrite heart. God will do the rest.
With love,
Fr. Thuong Hoai Nguyen