← The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Day 363: Forgive Us Our Trespasses (2024)
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Forgiving those who have hurt us is a challenging call. Fr. Mike explains what it means to "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." We learn that forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same thing and that we can transform our hurt into intercession with God's grace. We ask the Lord to soften our hearts so that they may remain open to loving and forgiving others. Today's readings are Catechism paragraphs 2838-2845.
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I'm Fr. Mark Mary Ames with the Franciscan Friars. Through the Renewal, my brothers and sisters at the service of becoming saints and falling in love with Jesus and Mary in the most Holy Rosary. The team here at Ascension Press have put together the Rosary in a Year podcast. Each day we're gonna have a 10 to 15 minute episode where we're just gonna work through the basics of the Rosary. Who is Jesus? How do we encounter Jesus? Who is Our Lady? What does it mean for us to be in relationship to her? We're going to go through the Hail Mary, the Our Father, each of the different mysteries. Then we're going to bring in some saint writings on the Mysteries and some sacred art that speaks on the mysteries, and all of this to help enrich our prayer, to renew our prayer, to help us fall in love with Jesus and Mary and to fall in love with the Rosary again. If you want to join us on this journey, you can begin by going to ascensionpress.com rosary in a year to download the prayer plan and by listening and praying with us through the Rosary in a Year podcast. All right, look forward to the journey with you.
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Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast where we encounter God's plan of pure goodness for us revealed in scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in here is brought to you by ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity in God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 363. We're reading paragraphs 2838 to 2845. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the Foundations of Faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own Catechism in a Year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com ciy and you can click follow or subscribe on your podcast app for the daily updates for the next two days, you know, whatever, and daily notifications. Today is day 363. We're reading paragraphs 2838 to 2845 and man, this part of the Lord's Prayer, it's astonishing. In fact, those are the first words of paragraph 2838. It says, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And the first line here, this petition is astonishing. I was thinking this morning, I was just praying about this and praying about. I know that when it came to the life in Christ, it came to the third pillar, morality, right, how we live. I know there was a lot of challenge. There was a lot of challenge for a lot of people because we have our pet things. We have our stuff that. I don't want to let go of this. I don't want to surrender this to the Lord. I think this is how it should be. Or I don't understand how this teaching. Teaching could possibly be lived out. I don't know if there's a more difficult teaching than this teaching. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. It asks a lot. Not only does it ask the Lord God to forgive us fully, but it demands a lot on us. It demands that we are forgiven to the degree that we are willing to forgive those who have hurt us. And that's a lot. And so as we talk about this teaching today, this teaching, that sometimes it might have gone under the radar, maybe actually in our lives, we might have even kind of just glazed over this. This petition, or maybe even we've been convicted by this petition. And it's been one of those things that's painful. Every time we pray it, I think, oh, Lord, please don't forgive us our trespasses as I would like to, or as someone else has forgiven. I don't know if I can do this. And so in order to open ourselves to the profundity and the depth of this teaching, we need God's help. We truly need God's help. So let's pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Father in heaven, give us your help. Father in heaven, you are the God of mercy. You are the God who has revealed your mercy to us in your son, Jesus Christ. You've extended your mercy to us in your son. And by pouring out your Holy Spirit to us, you not only have made us new, not only have you taken away our sins, you've also given us the strength to be like you. You've given us the strength to pray like your son, to love like your son, and to forgive like your son. Lord God, you have. You've invited us to pray that you forgive us the way we forgive others. Lord God, this is dangerous. This is high, this is daunting, this is difficult. And yet this is how you have told us that we are to pray. And so, Lord God, please help us to not only pray this way, help us to live this way. Help us not to not only live this way with our outward actions, but help us to love this way. And when we do that, Lord God, we pray like your son Jesus. When we do this, we live like your son Jesus. And when we do this, we love like your son Jesus, who prayed for his persecutors even as they were killing him. Lord God, give us that same heart. Give us the heart of Jesus this day and every day that we can pray for those who hurt us, that we can forgive those who hurt us, and that we can truly trust in your forgiveness in our own lives. Lord, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. We make this prayer in the mighty name of the one who taught us this prayer, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is day 363. We're reading paragraphs 2838, 2845. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. This petition is astonishing. If it consisted only of the first phrase, and forgive us our trespasses, it might have been included implicitly in the first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer, since Christ's sacrifice is that sins may be forgiven. But according to the second phrase, our petition will not be heard unless we have first met a strict requirement. Our petition looks to the future, but our response must come first, for the two parts are joined by the single word as and forgive us our trespasses. With bold confidence we began praying to our Father, in begging him that his name be hallowed, we were in fact asking him that we ourselves might be always made more holy. But though we are clothed with the baptismal garment, we do not cease to sin to turn away from God. Now in this new petition, we return to him, like the prodigal son and like the tax collector, recognize that we are sinners before Him. Our petition begins with a confession of our wretchedness and his mercy. Our hope is firm because in His Son we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. We find the efficacious and undoubted sign of his forgiveness in in the sacraments of his church Now. And this is daunting. This outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts. As long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us. Love, like the body of Christ, is indivisible. We cannot love the God we cannot see if we do not love the brother or sister. We do see in refusing to Forgive our brothers and sisters. Our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father's merciful love. But in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace. This petition is so important that it is the only one to which the Lord returns and which he develops explicitly in the Sermon on the Mount. This crucial requirement of the covenant mystery is impossible for man, but with God all things are possible as we forgive those who trespass against us. This as is not unique in Jesus teaching, you therefore must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Be merciful even as your Father is merciful. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. It is impossible to keep the Lord's commandment by imitating the divine model from outside. There has to be a vital participation coming from the depths of the heart in the holiness and the mercy and the love of our God. Only the Spirit by whom we live can make ours the same mind that was in Christ Jesus. Then the unity of forgiveness becomes possible and we find ourselves forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave us. Thus the Lord's words on forgiveness, the love that loves to the end, become a living reality. The parable of the merciless servant which crowns the Lord's teaching on ecclesial communion ends with these words. So also my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. It is there, in fact, in the depths of the heart that everything is bound and loosed. It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense, but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory. In transforming the hurt into intercession, Christian prayer extends to the forgiveness of enemies, transfiguring the disciple by configuring him to his Master. Forgiveness is a high point of Christian prayer. Only hearts attuned to God's compassion can receive the gift of prayer. Forgiveness also bears witness that in our world love is stronger than sin. The martyrs of yesterday and today bear this witness to Jesus. Forgiveness is the fundamental condition of the reconciliation of the children of God with their Father and of men with one another. There is no limit or measure to this essentially divine forgiveness. Whether one speaks of sins, as in Luke, or debts, as in Matthew, we are always debtors, owe no one anything except to love one another. The communion of the Holy Trinity is the source and criterion of truth in every relationship. It is lived out in Prayer above all in the Eucharist, God does not accept the sacrifice of a sower of disunion, but commands that he depart from the altar so that he may first be reconciled with his brother. For God can be appeased only by prayers that make peace to God. The better offering is peace, brotherly concord, and a people made one in the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All right, there we have it. Paragraphs 2838 to 2845. As I said, you know, one of the greatest challenges, I think it was CS Lewis who once said in the book Mere Christianity, he said, I declared that chastity was the least popular of all the Christian virtues. But he said, I don't think that's right. I think that forgiveness is the least possible. He says, everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until you have something to forgive. That's it, right? Everyone thinks that forgiveness is a lovely idea until you have something to forgive and then to ask for forgiveness or to require forgiveness. He says, you're met with howls of people are getting mad at you because you're saying that essentially, how dare you ask me to forgive the person who hurt me? In fact, in that same talk, in that same chapter in Mere Christianity, Louis says, people would ask and say, how would you feel if you were a Pole or a Jew and had to forgive the Gestapo? And Louis responds, he says, I wonder, too. I wonder very much. I don't know what I would do if I had that much to forgive. And yet we cannot escape this. We cannot escape the command of Jesus that we pray this in paragraph 2838, it highlights how remarkable this is, how astonishing this prayer is. It goes on to say, this petition is astonishing. Paragraph 2838. If it consisted only of the first phrase, and forgive us our trespasses, it might have been included implicitly in the first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer. Right? Of course. But according to the second phrase, our petition will not be heard unless we have first met a strict requirement. Our petition looks to the future, but our response must come first, for the two parts are joined by the single word as, and that is forgive us, as we forgive those who sin against us or trespass against us. It's remarkable because we man, we live in this world that's so broken, and we are. We are so quick to break each other, right? We're so quick to hurt each other. We're so quick to turn away from the Lord. We turn away from God so easily. In our petition, of course, forgive us our trespasses that begins with a confession. We're confessing that I have fallen short, Lord God, I have failed. One thing important for all of us. Maybe you've heard priests talk about this when it comes to confession. One of the, you know, the actual sacrament of reconciliation, sacrament of confession, one of the temptations people face. And this might not be something you face, but it's a temptation that a lot of people face. And it's the temptation to confess other people's sins, that sometimes people go to confession and they'll say, well, you know, their spouse, my spouse is kind of short tempered. My spouse does this, my spouse doesn't do that, that kind of thing. Or my kids are like this and my kids are like that. The people I work with are. And basically, here's a list of the sins of other people. And sometimes that is the person's trying to, you know, set the context. And so, you know, my husband was cranky and so I was really short with him. And I need to confess that, that kind of thing. But a lot of times it's because it's much easier to note the sins of others than it is to recognize my own sins. And yet inherent in the prayer, forgive us our trespasses, is the reality that, oh, I need to confess the fact that I have trespasses. Right? I need to confess the fact that I love how it even says this. Our petition begins with a confession of our wretchedness. Let's pause on that word for a second. Do I believe that I have wretchedness? I think a lot of us would say, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm good, I'm good enough, that kind of thing. Because, I don't know, we kind of live in a culture right now that if you were to say no. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Like, no, you're not a wretch. Don't think so poorly of yourself. That's not healthy. But if I was honest with myself, if we were honest with ourselves, we'd be able to look at ourselves and say, actually, there's plenty of wretchedness. There's plenty of ugliness in my soul, ugliness in my heart. In fact, I remember talking with a student for a long time and she was really concerned because she was pretty convinced that she wasn't a good person, but she felt stuck in that. She was convinced that she wasn't a good person and she felt stuck in that. Even talking with her for a long time, I realized that this is one of the lies that happens. One of the lies that the Evil One will use, typically, is a lilac has a barb on it. So it's pointy, it's like a pin. But a pointy lie, that's just like a pin. It just goes in, goes out, right? It hurts a little bit, but it doesn't stick around. If I. If I know this is a lie, it might hurt. The lie might hurt for a moment, but then it leaves. But there are some lies that are like hooks, like a fishing hook that has a barb on it. And so it goes in, but the reason it sticks is because there's some kind of degree of truth to it. Sometimes we get assailed by lies, and sometimes the Evil One will attack us with his lies. And almost always the lies that come up at us from the Evil One, or even the lies that we tell ourselves, that we believe ourselves, are lies that have barbs on them, meaning there's a degree of truth. And that's why it sticks in there. That's why it's not like a pin just goes in and comes out. Because I realize, oh, that's. It hurt. But there's no truth there. But when there's a little bit of truth, it could stick there. And I realize I start to believe the whole thing instead of just believe the barb, right? So what I mean by that is here's this young woman, and she saw her brokenness. She saw this, her sin, she saw her failure. And that's true. That was the barb, though it was a small part of this. Because what she ended up believing was that, oh, I'm not good at all. Like, there's nothing good in me. And that's a lie. Because if I were to argue with her and say, no, look at you. I mean, you're amazing, all these kind of things. And she'd say, no, but I only did that good thing because I thought it would look good for other people. Or I only treat people nicely because that, because I'm lonely, makes them like me or whatever the kind of thing is, right? And so there was an argument because that lie had just a degree of truth to it. The truth is that, yeah, we're wretched, or we have wretchedness. We're not fully wretched, we're not fully corrupt. We're deprived of that fullness, but we're not depraved. She was believing that she was depraved, right? Because she could point to this brokenness in her. She could point to a wretchedness in her because of that. It was getting stuck. She was getting stuck. She wasn't believing the whole truth. The whole truth is, oh, yeah, I'm broken. Yes, I have wretchedness and I'm loved. Yeah, I'm broken, but yeah, I'm also blessed. And for her, yep, there is some darkness, There is shadow. There was shadow in her heart, in her speech and her thoughts and her interactions, but there was also a lot of light. And this is true for all of us. We need to have this confession of our wretchedness and believe that, but also also a confession of God's mercy. And that's why we need that double conviction, the conviction of, yeah, no, I'm a sinner and the conviction of, and the Lord is merciful and he loves me. He loves you. We all have to have to recognize he were sinners and we have a Savior who absolutely loves us. So we need that confession of wretchedness. That was a little side tangent, but I know we're coming to the end of this. I just wanted to share. Don't believe the lies and also don't give that little Barb, that little small part of truth. Don't give that more power than it deserves. Yes, we have to acknowledge the barb. We have to acknowledge the part that's true, but that doesn't mean that the rest of it's true. So our petition of this, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. It begins with a confession of our wretchedness. Yeah, I need God's mercy. And we get God's mercy. And our hope is firm because in Jesus Christ we have redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. And it's incredible because I love this last line of 2839. It says, we find the efficacious and undoubted sign of his forgiveness in the sacraments of His Church. Think about the sacrament of reconciliation, the efficacious and undoubted sign of his forgiveness in the sacraments of his church. That you go to confession and you know, you don't have to feel it, you know that the Lord God has forgiven you through the ministry of his his church. It's amazing. It's incredible. And so it goes to say, 2840 now, and this is daunting. This outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts. As long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us. This is daunting. The outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us. Love, like the body of Christ, is indivisible. We cannot love the God we cannot see. If we do not love the brother or sister, we do see. And so, in refusing to love our brothers and sisters, and refusing to love people around us, our hearts are closed. And that hardness makes them impervious to the Father's merciful love. But when we confess our sins, our hearts are open to his grace. This is so important. His teaching is so important. I mean, think about the parable of the merciless servant, right? We know this. Where there's a king or master, he's going to settle his accounts, and he brings his servant before him, who owes him a huge amount. It says. Actually, the original Greek says it owes him 10,000 talents. And the servant begs the master to forgive him. He says, give me time and I'll pay back what I owe you. Now, this is kind of fascinating. 10,000 talents. What's 10,000 talents? Well, one talent is equal to 6,000 days wages. So 6,000 denarii adds up to one talent. And the guy owes 10,000 talents, which means, I think he owes something like 160,000 years of service. It's like 60 million talents. Days of work. He owes the master. He owes the king, the person in charge here. Think about that. Give me time and I'll pay back what you owe. What I owe? Okay, 60 million. 60 million days of service. 160,000 years of service. That's a lot of time. Basically, he can't. He can't pay it back. And yet what happens? The master says, I release you from your debt. Goes on, you know, the merciless, that servant who was just forgiven. There's another servant who is a much smaller amount. In fact, the original Greek, there is 100 denarii. So you go from 60 million denarii to 100 denarii, and he doesn't forgive him. He's not willing to forgive him. And that's why that parable ends with the word, so also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. And this is so critical. What is it to forgive from the heart? It's not. I feel fine. It's not. I'm no longer hurt. It's not. I trust you now. It's not. We're reconciled. There's a difference between forgiveness and. And reconciliation. There's a difference between forgiveness and restoration of the relationship. Forgiveness can be very, very simple. And it's from that parable. The parable of the merciless servant or the forgiving master who says, I release you from your debt. So we know this, we've heard this before, probably is that God is just and justice is what justice is giving someone what they're owed, giving someone their due. And so God is not ignoring justice, he's not disregarding justice. Justice is a good God is just giving someone what they're owed. That's just. And so the call here to forgive those who have sinned against us is not the call to be a doormat, right? It's not the call to be someone's punching bag. It is the call to say, okay, this person has hurt me. They've cost me something. They owe me something. Justice would declare they owe me something. And forgiveness is merely saying what that merciful master said, I release you from your debt. I'm simply not going to make you pay me back. In so many ways, it's the heart of forgiveness. It's one of the reasons why I'm grateful that it says 10,000 talents. He knows exactly what this man owes him. He knows exactly what the man owes him. And that's one of the steps, I think, when it comes to forgiveness, very, very important for us to be able to say, okay, I have these bad feelings towards this person because they've hurt me. Okay, but what have they cost? This is the big question. What have they cost you? And I think it's important to do this like this, to actually take that person, take that situation, whatever the thing is, take that wound that hurt into the chapel, into your church, in front of our Lord, in the Eucharist and in front of the image of Jesus on the cross, and to be able to, in that safe place, that place of the Holy Spirit, that place of Christ's presence, to be able to say, okay, let me add up what they've cost me again, not for a vendetta, not for revenge, but so that I can say, okay, this is. This is what they owe me. This is what they owe. They owe me my innocence. They owe me the ability to trust what they did. It affected relationships like this, this and this. Like, that's what they owe me. Just in the same way that if you lent someone your car and they got into an accident and there were $900 worth of damage on your car, they would owe you $900 because that's what they cost you. Now, if you were to forgive them, it's not. You're not saying, oh, no big deal, if you were to forgive them, you're not like, oh, here's the keys again, if you were to forgive them, what that means is, I'm not going to make you pay me back. You owe me $900. I release you from your debt. Doesn't mean I trust you again. Doesn't mean I'm going to lend you my car again. Doesn't mean we're best friends. It just means I'm not going to wait to make you pay me back. Similarly, how has this person hurt you? What have they cost you? To be able to. As best we can, to total that up and. And then with God's help, right? This can only be done with the strength of Jesus Christ. Then we say, I release you from your debt. That's it in the sense of, I'm not going to make you pay me back. And to do this, as it says in paragraph 2843, to do this in the depths of the heart, it says, goes on to say, it is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense. So don't worry about it. If you still feel upset, still feel hurt, if you still remember it, and you're like, oh, forgive and forget, but I can't forget. Just forgive. It's not in our power not to feel. It's not in our power to forget. But the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory and transforming the hurt into intercession. Because that's the next step. It's. The first step is adding it all up, right? The second step is I release you from your debt. The next step is now I need to transform that hurt into intercession. Because Christian prayer extends to the forgiveness of enemies, we're actually commanded by our Lord to pray for those who have hurt us. We have to transform that hurt into intercession. And that's a high call as well. It is a high, high call. But forgiveness, as it says in 2844, forgiveness bears witness that in our world, love is stronger than sin. Forgiveness bears witness that in our world, love is stronger than sin. It is a love that you've seen lived out. You've seen that love depicted on every crucifix. You've seen that love lived out above all in the Eucharist. What does Jesus do? He comes to us sinners. He comes to us sinners with his love. Forgiveness bears witness that in our world, love is stronger than sin. God's love for us is stronger than sin. And we have to love with the love with which we have been loved. And it's impossible. It's impossible without God's grace, without God's help, without prayer. So please pray for each other. Pray for those who've hurt you. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.