Forgive to be forgiven: Homily for Thursday, June 19, 2025

Today we get two lessons. First, we have to accept Jesus as he is, and not as we wish him to be. Second, in teaching us to pray, Jesus tells us that to be forgiven, we need to forgive. Readings for Today.

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Forgive to be forgiven

What an interesting combination of readings we get today. A warning about receiving the right type of Jesus, and a lesson in what it means to pray. I’m not going to give a deep commentary on the prayer of the Our Father. There are others who have done so much better than I, most notably St. Cyprian.

But I think there are some things that we can grasp from the readings today that might be helpful in our own spiritual lives. I was thinking as I heard the first reading that this first reading in some ways could be written for us today, our society, our culture. Because I think when you listen to people talk about Jesus and to talk about their faith, particularly those who don’t seem to have a deep relationship with Jesus, it’s really Jesus the teddy bear.

His only purpose is to make us feel better about ourselves. Or something firm is stated as a measure of church teaching, and oh no, I believe in the Jesus of the gospel, the Jesus who is loved, the Jesus who loves us.

The implication is he loves us but never really challenges us. He loves us but he never really expects much from us. He loves us but he never really takes a strong stand on things because he’s loved. As an aside, it reminds me of my least favorite commercial tagline, and that’s the tagline that Subaru uses. Love, it’s what makes a Subaru a Subaru.

But isn’t that part of the challenge of our age really, that we can use love in a way to kind of just smooth over everything so that we never have to feel uncomfortable? Jesus really does challenge us when we get to this prayer in the gospel. How many times have we said the Our Father?

If you think of Dominicans, let’s see, there’s morning prayer, there’s evening prayer, there’s each of the mysteries of the rosary, that’s at least seven. And maybe we pray more times, who knows? I don’t know all the Our Fathers that we might pray.

But what a powerful, powerful prayer. It reminds us of our ultimate identity as Catholics as being members of a community. We’re not praying to only my Father but our Father. There is this intimate trust that we’re called to have that God will provide for everything that we need in some way.

Give us this day our daily bread. But the real hard part it seems to me is when he talks about forgiveness. And it isn’t just in the Our Father in today’s gospel because I think he knows he needs to reinforce what he’s saying. It’s in the Our Father, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. But just in case we didn’t hear it, he says, if you forgive others their transgressions, your Heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you your transgressions.

I don’t know about you, but there are at least some times in my life where I don’t want to forgive. I don’t like to forgive. They should know how they wronged me. Sometimes it goes even a step further and not only do I dwell on the wrong someone has committed against me, but I tell a lot of people about how I’ve been wronged too.

It’s not enough to keep it to myself. It’s not enough to bring it to prayer. I have to let the entire world know that no one has seen the suffering that I’ve seen in my life. And yet when it comes to myself, I want to be forgiven of everything right away. I don’t sometimes even think of the severity of what I might have done.

But Jesus does not have a loophole. There’s no forgiveness contract clause that says we don’t have to open our hearts to forgive others. I don’t think this is because God withholds forgiveness from us, but rather when we forgive others, our hearts are open. We can receive God’s forgiveness by our openness to forgive others. It is true that Jesus loves us, but it is also true that he wants us to become our best selves. He wants us to become the persons that he has created.

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