If You Forgive. . .

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator

We back up just a little today and read the verses from St. Matthew's Gospel that were excerpted from the traditional Ash Wednesday Gospel. Jesus teaches his disciples the three-fold charter of true repentance: praying in private, fasting without looking gloomy, and giving alms in secret. However, right in the middle of the teaching, he inserts the verses we read today, the verses which give us what we have come to know as "The Lord's Prayer."

The lesson from Jesus speaks of God's reward for private, fasting and almsgiving. Many have come to expect that God will reward them with earthly benefits and entrance into heaven. However, if we read the passage with today's verses in the correct context, we can see that the reward is all about forgiveness. Indeed, this is one of the major themes that runs throughout St. Matthew's Gospel. God will forgive us if we are agents of reconciliation in our own lives. St. Matthew is more explicit than St. Mark and St. Luke, leaving no doubt about his meaning. If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions. (Matthew 6:14-15) I have long regarded this statement as one of the most crucial of all the different pronouncements that St. Matthew places in the mouth of Jesus. Our own repentance is not enough. We must not only turn away from our own sins, we must forgive the sins of others. I know how hard it is to forgive others. We all know. There is perhaps no other harder requirement or requisite component to being a follower of Jesus.

All of the Lenten penances which we practice, all of the alms which we give, all of the prayers which we offer are for naught if we cannot forgive others. Perhaps the best gift we could ask for and receive from God who rewards us is the ability to forgive. It is the linchpin which holds this passage together.