Some Sundays, the Word of God comforts us. This Sunday, it confronts us.
Sirach gives us an uncomfortable image: we can become so attached to anger and resentment that we hug them tight. Then Peter asks Jesus how many times we are expected to forgive, hoping for a reasonable limit. Jesus refuses to give him one.
And then comes the hardest part: forgiveness must come from the heart.
That’s where these readings stop being about somebody else’s anger, somebody else’s family, somebody else’s wounds, and become deeply personal.
Whose name comes to mind when you hear the word forgiveness?
What hurt are you still rehearsing? What resentment have you grown comfortable carrying? What are you still hugging tight?
There may be no easy answers this Sunday.
But perhaps Jesus isn’t asking us to have it all figured out. Perhaps he’s asking us to stop pretending there isn’t anything we’re still holding.
And maybe that’s where forgiveness begins.
