It seems that as we are inherently passive-aggressive. With the advent of social media, this tendency has become far more pronounced. What do I mean by “passive-aggressive”? Something like, when I have an issue with you, I talk to somebody else or, as is sometimes the case, everybody else, avoiding discussing it with you directly. Often this includes spreading gossip.
It’s possible to use confession in a passive-aggressive way. Sometimes it’s easier to tell the priest hearing my confession about some wrong I’ve committed against someone than it is to go to that person, confess, and say I am sorry. Isn’t it easier to say an Our Father and three Hail Mary’s than to humbly apologize, putting yourself at the mercy of another?
Being merciful, like Jesus, makes it easier for others to place themselves at your mercy. Mercy, which is most recognizably expressed as forgiveness, breaks the cycle of resentment, which is a vicious and violent cycle.
In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”1 As he was nailed to the cross, Jesus implored, “Father, forgive them...”2 In his first post-resurrection appearance Jesus told his disciples: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.”3 In both the Nicene and Apostles Creed we profess belief in the forgiveness of sins.4
In our second reading, Saint Paul insists that, as Christians, we owe each other the debt of love. Releasing another from a legitimate debt s/he owes you is what it means to forgive. While it may not seem so at first glance, this passage is about forgiveness. Love, Paul plainly points out, fulfills the law.5 The law is but the means to the end of loving God by loving your neighbor as you love yourself.
Too often, we don’t just want to get even but to get ahead. While we don’t want to owe, often we want to be owed. But the path down which Jesus leads anyone who follows him is the path of loving your neighbor unconditionally. This not only means the willingness to forgive but to do the hard work of reconciliation. Forgiveness and working for reconciliation are requirements of being in communion.
Our Gospel today is about the Church, which is a community founded on sustained by forgiveness and reconciliation. Like God, the Church is a communion of persons, all too human persons. Hence, like the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, the Church, too, is unity in diversity. "Unity in diversity" is a beautiful phrase but the reality is often messy. The Eucharist is the source of our unity.
Community is indispensable for anyone who seeks to follow Christ. Belonging to a community centered on communion teaches one to forgive and be forgiven. Life together teaches you not to judge harshly, not to act rashly, or to hold grudges. Communal life together enables us to overcome our tendency to be hard-hearted.
If the Church is not a sign of unity, then we fail to be the sacrament of salvation in and for the world. As Catholics, when we discuss Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, we typically leap straight to his presence in the consecrated bread and wine. But Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, is fourfold.6
Each Mass culminates in the Communion Rite. But this is only made possible by what precedes it. Otherwise, it runs the risk of becoming a conjuring trick. Chronologically, the first way Christ is really present is in the gathering of the baptized. This is what scripture means when it says: “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”7
My dear friends, as our responsorial bids us, “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”8 You have heard his voice in today’s readings. A hard heart is an unforgiving heart. An unforgiving heart cannot be a grateful heart. Let’s never forget that Eucharist means thanksgiving.
1 Matthew 6:12; Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, sec. 124.↩
2 Luke 23:34.↩
3 John 20:23.↩
4 Roman Missal, The Order of Mass, sec. 18-19.↩
5 Romans 13:8.↩
6 Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium [Dogmatic Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy], sec. 7.↩
7 Matthew 18:20.↩
8 Psalm 95:7-8.↩
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