Jesus is showing us how to be faithful. We are called to be more like him, more like God, to love others as God loves us. We know the immensity and generosity of God's love and are called to share that and to love in the same way.
We live in very competitive times when loving your enemy is not the way of the world. In all walks of life, the goal is to get ahead at any cost. There are political, cultural and social wars being played out daily.
Everybody is trying to better, to make their mark, no matter the cost.
The world would be a very different place if we could be more forgiving and merciful; if we loved our enemies. Isn't this the way that Jesus calls us to? The path he wants us to follow?
We need to remember, though, to forgive ourselves too. We need to be more loving and kind to ourselves because only then can we let go of the grudges that we hold against others. Sometimes, when we are hurt, or people hurt us, they move on with their lives. And yet we stay in that place of hurt. We carry the pain and the burden of that hurt.
The invitation to forgiveness is not an invitation to forget. Perhaps one of the most stupid things in the English language is when people say, "Forgive and forget." It's not an invitation to forget. It's an invitation to forgive so that I can begin to discover the freedom of not carrying the burden. It's about my happiness.
Can you forgive? Can you let go?
And in so doing, set yourself free from the burden of hurt perhaps that you carry. That's a massive ask when we have been wronged, and yet it seems Jesus is saying to us if we truly want freedom and happiness, we have to choose to forgive so that we can move on. Sometimes those who have hurt us have long moved on, and we carry the burden.
So how do we put that burden down so that our lives become lighter?
