Forgiveness is Hard

14 August 2025  Matthew 18:21-19:1

“I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” Matthew 18:22

Forgiveness is hard. That’s why we have to keep doing it. If we stop doing it, we may never start up again because it’s so hard.

Forgiveness was the first thing that Jesus did – He said to the paralytic, who had been hauled up onto the roof of a house where his friends made a hole, and then let him down in front of Jesus with ropes. Jesus said to him, “Child, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5). Some Scribes sitting there grumbled that Jesus was making Himself out to be God by forgiving sins (He was doing just exactly that), but Jesus then asked, “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your pallet and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” – He said to the paralytic – “I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home” (Mark 2:9-11).

Forgiveness is so hard that healing a paralyzed man with just a word is easier.

That’s why we have to keep doing it, because if we stop, we might never start again.

Forgiveness is also the last thing that Jesus did. Nailed to the cross, gasping for breath, each ragged breath as hot as fire in His chest, suffering from the worst thing that people could do, putting God to death in the most shameful and painful way possible, He said, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

Forgiveness is so hard that sometimes it really, truly kills you.

That’s why we have to keep doing it, because if we stop, we might never start again.

Forgiveness is especially hard when the people we are forgiving aren’t sorry, who don’t care that we are hurt, who may even enjoy it. Anger is much easier then. Anger feels right at times like that. Anger reassures us that we matter. Anger may give us reason enough to recover from whatever we have lost and seek revenge. and maybe we get it, and don’t care if the person who hurt us has repented or not. Anger feels like power.

But all anger really does is create one more person who doesn’t care when someone is hurt.

It is hard to resist anger, and that’s why we have to keep forgiving, because if we stop, we may never start again.

Forgiveness is hard. It is even hard for God. That’s why the Cross is the central emblem of our religion. Every time we see the Cross, we see that God has poured His whole life into forgiving us, and he keeps on doing it, giving us His life over and over again, at every Mass where His life is gently placed in our hands. Again and again. He never stops, even if it’s hard, indeed because it’s hard.

How many times do we forgive? We can stop when God does.