24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 13 Homily

Homily in English

She heard the killers call her by name with contemptuous, determined voices.  “She's here ... we know she’s here somewhere. ... Find her – find Immaculee,” one of them said.  They were carrying machetes, spears, garden tools – anything that could strike a hard blow into human flesh.  Some of those voices were her former friends and neighbors – people who Immaculee Ilibagiza had grown up with, played with, and went to school with.  Now, she was hiding in a 3-foot-by-4-foot bathroom with a group of other women, powerless as she heard the cries and screams of people out on the street being killed – virtually every member of Rwanda's minority Tutsi tribe that the murdering mobs could find.

In 1994, over the course of just 100 days, well over 500,000 Rwandan Tutsis were brutally killed by Hutu mobs in one of history's worst cases of genocide.  The murdered included nearly all of Immaculee's family.  And for three, horror-filled months, the Hutu mobs repeatedly searched the home where Immaculee and the others were hiding, sometimes coming just inches from the wardrobe that hid the bathroom door.

Yet, nearly 30 years later, Immaculee has dedicated her life to spreading God's message of mercy – His call for us to trust in Him, and His call for us to forgive those who have hurt us.  But how?  How could she ever forgive such atrocities?  She tells us in her book, Left to Tell.    

While in hiding, Immaculee struggled to cling to her sanity.  She endured an intense internal battle between trusting in God and succumbing to paralyzing fear and despair.  Nearly all of her waking hours were spent in prayer.  But she started realizing that some of the words she prayed rang hollow in her heart, particularly the words in the Lord's Prayer about forgiving “those who trespass against us.”  She actually felt hatred toward the killers and had dreams of revenge.  Yet amid the repeated doubts that surged, she prayed more intensely, “Touch my heart, Lord, and show me how to forgive.”  

Then one day, she had reached an epiphany.  Suddenly, those words in the Our Father that once rang so hollow to her now resounded in her soul as the chimes of salvation.  You see, she realized that hating the killers was preventing her from trusting God.  Hatred was an obstacle she was allowing that prevented her from receiving the help God wanted to give her.  At that moment, she prayed for the killers, that their sins be forgiven, and that they recognize the horrific error of their ways before their time on Earth expired.  She held onto her rosary beads and again heard God's voice, this time saying: “Forgive them; they know not what they do.”
Forgiveness is so important.  And yet it’s so often misunderstood.  For example, forgiveness is not about somehow circumventing God’s justice.  It’s not letting the guilty off the hook.  It’s not excusing sinful behavior.  It’s not pushing your anger down.  It’s not about being a doormat.  And ultimately forgiveness is not a mere feeling, because if we wait until we feel like forgiving, we may never get there.  

In truth, forgiveness is an act of the will – a choice we make not to hold the past against a person anymore – not because they deserve it – but because if we don’t, then we’re the ones mercilessly trapped and tortured in the prison of the past, letting those old wounds fester and embitter us.  And isn’t this what Jesus says at the end of today’s Gospel?  Referring to what happened with the merciless servant, who was handed over to the torturers until he should pay back the whole debt, Jesus declares: “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”  

Forgiveness, then, is about dismissing the “debt” owed to you – releasing the offender from the obligation to repay you.  It’s not demanding that they pay for what they did.  Forgiveness is giving up the option of holding on to the offense, and instead giving it to God.  Forgiveness is possible even if it’s never earned or requested – it doesn’t have to be a two-way street.  And, in the end, forgiveness involves changing your thinking about the offender, seeing him or her as someone in need of forgiveness, just like you and I are.

And this is why Jesus says we have to forgive from the heart.  It means we forgive when we don’t want to – when we don’t feel like it.  It means we pray for the person.  It means we don’t gossip about them, or smear their reputation.  And if we’re really stuck, then we ask God for the grace to even be willing to forgive them in the first place.    

Is forgiveness easy?  Often times, no.  But, it’s something that each one of us must grapple with frequently in our lives.  Whether it’s wounds from childhood, or something that just happened last week.  Whether it’s hurts caused by a family member, a friend or even a stranger.  No matter the details, in the face of anger, resentment, and a whole host of other negative emotions, forgiveness is the only way to the abiding peace that God alone can give us.

We’ve all heard it said before that “I can forgive, but I can’t forget.”  It’s natural for us to remember something or someone that hurt us.  But what this means, then, is that every time you see the person’s face, or hear their name, or remember a detail, the choice is presented to you again – forgive or hold on to hate?  And then it’s presented again and again and again.  And, you might have to make this choice 77 times on some days; but that’s OK.  

God will truly give you the grace so that you can forgive your own debtors.  How can he not?  The Father has forgiven us the eternal debt of our sins by the sacrifice of His Son on the cross.  In turn, He wants us, not to choke the fellow servant who owes us.  Rather, we are called to no longer hold the unchangeable burden of the past against them anymore.  Truly, in forgiveness is real freedom found.  God will be faithful to His part.  He just asks us to be willing partners in the process with Him.  God bless you.