I’m sure most of you have heard the phrase, “Don’t forget where you came from.” This might mean different things for each of you, such as the neighborhood you grew up in, the conditions you were surrounded with or raised in, and perhaps how rough or tough they were. It’s very important to remember these words. In the above gospel, the ungrateful servant forgot where he came from. He forgot the encounter he had with his master who shewed him mercy and compassion, and because he forgot, he could not shew the same mercy and compassion to others. We’re going to talk about why it's difficult to forgive and get to the root of the problem. We as Catholics are blessed to have the sacraments, especially the sacrament of penance. We can go and confess our sins. The book of James tells us that we can sit and kneel to confess our sins and the priest hears us, encourages us, and gives us an exhortation and then we are forgiven our sins. We must understand that this experience is a true encounter with Jesus Christ, the source of all love and mercy himself and we should all be amazed by it, let it astound us, that Jesus gave his authority to his apostles who then gave the authority to the bishops and then to the priests. It is Jesus himself who absolves our sins, how it is so wonderful and how we should all be grateful, and its for us to enjoy that, “God has forgiven me and has forgotten the sin.” But also showing the same mercy in return. "We are truly forgiven what a gift from God!" But confession is also a school of mercy, and we begin to learn how to forgive through penance. This encounter with Jesus, he forgives us immediately, right away he forgives us! Of course, he see’s the good in us, he knows we can do better, he gives us another chance, that’s love. He knows what we are capable of in him, and he shows us patience, that we need to learn from this sin, and have fallen short, but good can come out of it. Look at his patience, he sees that I’m still capable of being a good person and doing good. This is what did not happen to the servant, and learned not from the master who pitied him. His punishment was canceled by his master and he let him free of his debt, to get out there. Yet he couldn’t do it in return when someone offended him, and it was a large amount he was forgiven, and the amount he could not forgive was small. But sometimes we forget the experience of mercy, as the servant obviously forgot. Another reason we forget sometimes, Jesus tells us to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect, to shew mercy as your father shews mercy with perfect love, not perfectionism. Sometimes we can be aiming for perfectionism, and when we don’t reach that its self defeating even after we have been forgiven, we remain in shame or guilt, and when there is an offense against us our expectations are high and it becomes difficult to forgive. Some of us have been living the christian life for many years and decades, and over time we have improved in our morals and ethics, and feel accomplished in that, but yet, we can get to a point to where something we have done, inflates our ego, and it becomes more about self and we forget it was God who got us there. We are raising our expectations too high and this will cause us have trouble forgiving. There are other things too. Wounds that are deep and things that have limited us or become debilitating, and perhaps the offense against us has changed our life forever, but we still pray for Gods healing and the grace to forgive. Forgiveness itself, and the mercy we experience in that moment, when we receive it, do we deserve it? No, but Gods loves us, and he gives it to us, he sees the good we can become. In our sin, God sees that it takes time to get better, especially to overcome certain sins that are habitual sins and its like a rehabilitation, the confession is a great encounter with the great physician, we are getting healed, it’s a remedy, it’s Jesus Christ the Lord so we get better over time, he is patient with us, he sees we are human and knows how difficult it is, it is mercy and we too need to see that in ourselves and try to understand one another. We can forgive others by going about it gently and humbly, but we must understand why, and it might take time for them to convert like it takes time for us to amend our own lives.
We always need to be aware of Gods love for us and the great mercy, and we can do that by thinking about how he loves us, and how everyday he is pouring mercy on us, every moment we have in existence he is showing us love and every second, minute and hour is another opportunity to draw closer to him and be more in union with him. It’s not about having the image of a holy person and perfectionism, its about union, seeing how he has shown us such mercy, and especially those who have had very sinful lives before. Yet, we came back to the church and god forgave us. There are some people who don’t go to confession for many years even decades, and then right away God forgives all our sins, and we should always savor that experience, and the love we get from it. If he stopped loving us we would go out of existence. Love is sustained when we draw closer, think about where we came from and, who God brought us to where we are. It’s because of God himself, and his grace and lets be joyous with that. Let’s show others the unconditional love that he shows us. Again, it’s a union with love in him when we realize how much he loves us thus we want to love him even more, and we start sinning less. How much he has given us can be overwhelming, and that's why the saints, they wanted to be purged, because in the purgation from their sins and their effects and their distractions, they got closer to God. Sin have their effects and consequences, and we remember it in our body and mind, that's why we do penance we remove the guilt, and then we do reparation for our sins by living a more devout life, through charitable works, thats how we repair, but also because we love God and he loves us back. And eventually, there we are again coming to confession, recognizing Jesus is forgiving us, and again experiencing the love we are receiving and we are going to keep that love going. Recognizing this great gift of forgiveness and allowing it in return to shew us the mercy of Christ, and to others through works of charity. We look to Jesus and are always grateful for the love he shews us, and we enjoy that love, that unconditional love. As Saint Paul said, "While we were still yet sinners, Christ died for love of us."