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The Lord is kind and merciful.
When I was younger, growing up in Ireland,
I remember going to church often in Ireland.
In those days we always went to church.
I remember the message was incredibly negative.
I used to hear how sinful we were,
how rotten little children we were.
In fact, the priest would look at me and he would say,
“You rotten little child.
You are a little as you're going to hell for all your sins.”
It was like he was talking to me.
It did not sit well with me
as I knew I was not rotten! Sinful but rotten, no!
I now know the right term I was experiencing: a cognitive dissonance.
It did not make sense to me.
I knew I had made mistakes, do not get me wrong,
but I did not think I was that rotten to the core.
It was such a one-sided wrong message.
I thank God for my parents
because my parents balanced that with incredible love.
Particularly my father who was explicit with love
when we would make mistakes.
And I did so often.
It was forgiveness first and then the lesson would come later.
I was always forgiven, always looked past the sin.
But then later he would try to break it open
and make sure we learned a lesson.
That never happened at church.
Unfortunately, it does a great deal of damage.
It took well into my adulthood to disentangle those things
and it was a stumbling block to my vocation for years!
Unfortunately, we still hear a lot of it today,
even today in Catholic churches and even from Bishops today!
But they have creatively curated particular sins of a group of people saying,
“Those people are going to hell in a basket.”
It is not all sins.
It is not their sins.
It is just somebody else’s sins.
And it is problematic because it is not from the scriptures.
That is the struggle, that one-sided message is simply not in scriptures.
Once I learned that when I was much older,
it was a huge block for me in the church for a long time.
But once I understood scripture in a deeper way,
I realized that it was not a one-sided message,
it was a two-sided message.
Indeed, we are sinful.
We are, every one of us has made mistakes and are sinners,
but God is merciful and kind and loves us no matter what.
There is no sin that separates us from God’s incredible abundant love.
That second part of it; God’s mercy and love are important.
It is super important.
It is the context for everything else.
It is what the saints mastered and understood;
it was not about access to God.
It was that God gave full access to all of us,
that he was kind and merciful to all.
And all we had to do was accept it.
And that is why we need to say and acknowledge we are sinners.
Not in some sort of browbeaten way,
but to accept that I am, a sinner.
I have sinned, I have made mistakes.
I have made a lot of mistakes in my case.
And so, how do we do that?
Because that is the real key to balance between both of them.
This is what the saints mastered, this sense of humility before God,
that they have made mistakes;
I am a sinner in need of God's mercy and am grateful for God's mercy.
God's grace is so abundant that I am showered;
I am healed from all those sins.
That is the critical step that we need to take.
The saints got it right and the emphasis of it.
That is why we start every liturgy in the same way,
with humility of acknowledging our sinfulness.
The important part is that once we realize our weakness
then we are free to accept God’s love.
The challenge is where we find ourselves sometimes,
we get into a perfection mindset
and are trying to do things perfectly on our own.
If we are honest, we can acknowledge that we are not perfect
and perfection is an impossible goal.
As a result, the more we strive to be perfect,
the more frustrated that goal is.
But once we accept that we are not perfect,
and we will make mistakes, it is so liberating.
It is not that we do not try our best, we do!
We just try our best, but know that perfection is outside our reach
and that God makes up the difference for us.
Now, here is where the scriptures get into today,
the real rub is that if I know I am not perfect,
then I also know you are not perfect.
If I am going to accept the forgiveness for my sins,
then I have to accept the forgiveness for your sins,
especially the sins against me.
We are called to pass on that forgiveness to others.
In today's readings, it is really colorful and hits us hard.
That first reading, he reminds us
“Look at your final destiny in heaven.
Think about eternal life and do not hold grudges or hate in your hearts.
They are not compatible in eternal life.
Follow the commandments and realize you have to forgive others.
No point in having vengeance against anyone else.
You have to forgive.”
The gospel shares an incredibly powerful parable
about the need to forgive others.
There is this servant who is forgiven a large sum
and then he throttles somebody else who owes just a smaller gift.
He is then punished according to the punishment he gives to his debtor.
It comes full circle and receives what he gives.
Let me share another example.
I was at the Camaldolese monastery in Big Sur some years ago.
The priest gave this homily that shocked me, but in a good way.
He said, “When you want to go into heaven,
there is only one thing you can take with you when you go to heaven,
and that is the love in your own soul.”
You cannot take any goods,
you cannot take any money,
you cannot take any people.
It is just your soul that you will take to the gates of heaven.
And there is one thing you cannot take in
and your soul cannot go in if you have it.
And that is unforgiveness.
You cannot get into heaven if you have unforgiveness on your soul,
no matter who that unforgiveness is for,
because unforgiveness is incompatible in heaven.
If God has forgiven everybody
and you have chosen not to forgive somebody,
and that person is in heaven,
then you are not compatible with that space.
It is not the Lord excludes you.
You exclude yourself because you have unforgiveness in your heart.
And that is what today's reading says.
That is what the first reading says and is what the gospel says.
It is a really simple enough message when we think about it.
It is rather obvious, but it is hard.
But here is the good news, we still have time.
We still have time to forgive.
Now, if you are like me and most normal human beings,
you have got some unforgiveness in your heart
from somebody who did something to you,
or maybe it is even unforgiveness towards yourself or towards God.
The good news is we have time.
For some of us, we do not have a lot of time,
but for others, we have a lot of time.
And the challenge is we just do not know how much time.
And so, the impetus today is we are called to forgive today.
Why? Because it is good for our soul.
First of all, for eternal life.
But if forgiveness now sets us free,
it becomes incredibly liberating
when we know we have nothing on our soul.
Then at any moment, it does not matter when,
if the Lord takes me, I am ready.
Not because I want to go,
but because I have nothing on my heart holding me back.
That is the fullness of the message.
Yes, we are sinners, but God's love is all forgiving.
We must share that all forgiving love with others.
Yes, God is merciful and kind to all,
and we are called to pass it on to all.
Today, as we come to receive the Eucharist
and receive the forgiveness and wash clean once more,
may we make sure we hear the totality of the message
that we are called to be part of this forgiving world.
We forgive others as the Lord has forgiven us.
The Lord is kind and merciful.
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