March 12, 2019
Tuesday, 1st Week of Lent
1st Reading: Is 55:10–11
Gospel: Mt 6:7–15
Jesus said to his disciples, “When you pray, do not use a lot of words, as the pagans do, for they hold that the more they say, the more chance they have of being heard. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need, even before you ask him.“This, then, is how you should pray:Our Father in heaven,holy be your name,your kingdom comeand your will be done,on earth as in heaven.Give us today the kind of bread we need.Forgive us our debtsjust as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us.Do not bring us to the testbut deliver us from the evil one.“If you forgive others their wrongs, your Father in heaven will also forgive yours. If you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive you either.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray he gave them a prayer formula, which came to be called “The Lord’s Prayer”. This formula includes the petition for forgiveness of sins. There is something very unique about this inclusion. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” practically calibrates how much forgiveness a person can get from God. Other teachings of Jesus echo this calibration. One is the parable of the unforgiving servant who, after his Master wrote off his debt, mauled a fellow servant for a much smaller debt. The Lord’s Prayer and this parable of the unforgiving servant show to us Jesus’ preferential option for lavish forgiveness. He wanted his followers to forgive like gods. “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect”.
If the way we forgive calibrates the amount of forgiveness we can expect from God, shouldn’t our mutual forgiveness be raised to a level high enough to draw the amount of divine forgiveness due our sins? Considering the bigger sins we do before God, it is a foregone conclusion that we should forgive our neighbors all the time. In fact Jesus challenged all to forgive seventy times seven times. Whether interpreted literally or symbolically the number amounts to a generous frequency enough to cover every occasion of breach committed by our neighbors.
Why can’t God just forgive us and leave us alone in the way we settle our human conflicts? The answer lies in the nature of the human heart. Divine forgiveness is essentially an outpouring of grace which needs ample space. There is no such space in a heart full of hate.
Let us be careful not to recite the Our Father when our hearts are full of hate lest we end up challenging God not to forgive us in the same manner that we deprive others of our forgiveness. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.
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