March 22, 2022
Receiving and Giving mercy
Perhaps the greatest block to healing is underlying unforgiveness of another person. Jesus directly linked the efficacy of prayer to our willingness to forgive: Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father who is in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses (Mk 11:25). Unforgiveness closes our heart to God’s grace.
To illustrate how destructive unforgiveness is, Jesus told the parable of the unmerciful servant. The key to this parable is realizing that the servant was unmerciful because he would not receive mercy. He could not bring himself to accept such an immense free gift from his master. It was too humbling. Impossible as it was, he still wanted to pay back the debt somehow, so he needed every penny he could get. That is why he was so desperate to get back what his fellow servant owned.
This is how unforgiveness functions for us: we have a hard time receiving God’s free gift of mercy, so we begrudge giving away mercy to others. We hold on to being justified in our anger, being right and keeping others in the wrong. But there is a high price to pay for such mercilessness. The parable ends with the master delivering the wicked servant to the jailers (or “tortures”), untill he should pay all his debt. Those who hold on to grudges are indeed subject to torture interiorly, and they risk the eternal pain of separation from God. They keep themselves imprisoned in worse bonds than the person they resent.
Say a prayer of forgiveness out loud. For instance. “I forgive my boss for putting so much pressure on me that I became stressed out. “I forgive my mother fr criticizing me all the time.” We do not need to know with certainty whether the other person is guilty before God or not; that is God’s affair. To forgive is to set ourselves free, and to allow God’s mercy and healing to overflow in us.
MARY HEALY
Mary Healy is a professor of Sacred Scripture and a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.
