Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A (2026) - Fr Robert Krishna, OP

Is Jesus contradicting himself? Last Sunday, we heard about our obligation as Christians to correct someone who sins. We were reminded that it was an act of love to bring people to acknowledge and repent of their wrongdoing. But today’s Gospel seems to contradict that: the clear lesson that it teaches us, is that we should forgive each other, and not just that, but we should not set any limits to our forgiveness. That is what is meant by Jesus’ statement that we should forgive not just seven times, but seventy times seven. Doesn’t this mean we should overlook each other’s sin? If forgiveness is what the Church is all about, as Jesus suggests in today’s Gospel, why are we, Catholics, known for dwelling on sins, our own or other people’s? We begin each Mass by confessing we are sinners. We have a sacrament, Confession, dedicated to the forgiveness of sins. The most popular Catholic prayer, the Rosary, involves asking Mary to pray for us, sinners, at least 50 times. And quite a lot of the time, when we, Catholics, are featured in the media, it is because we are talking or doing something about people’s sinful behaviour, our own or that of others. There is even the popular term, “Catholic guilt.” Doesn’t forgiveness require us to do the opposite, forget about sin and move on? What would Jesus have us do, correct people, or forgive and forget? And what about the demands of justice, and the fact that however much we might be willing to forgive, sin does do real damage both to those victims of people’s sins, and to the sinners themselves?

Today’s readings suggest that forgiveness is not about forgetting, but about remembering. It’s about remembering that whatever we might have to say about each other’s sins, we ourselves are standing before God with our own sins. It’s about recalling that, however much people might have hurt us through those sins, we ourselves have hurt other people, and damaged our relationship with God by our sins. If we forget this and become blind to our own sins, this would only make things worse, building up resentment, but leaving us completely unaware of the effects of our own sins. This is why we focus so much on sin. Not because we are obsessed with sin, but because sin damages our relationship with each other and with God, and if we’re to set it right, then we need to acknowledge our own sins. Because as our first reading reminds us, that one day, we will meet God, face to face, and answer for our own sins, as everyone else will, too. Our forgiveness of other people’s sins is not in opposition to justice. Rather, it is what we carry with us when we face the justice of God which will right every wrong, heal every wound, and yes, punish every unrepented sin. So, we need not fear that our forgiveness will short-circuit divine justice. Rather, the forgiveness of other people’s sin, and the remembering of our own sin both take their places within the larger context of the coming, and perfectly just, judgement of God.

And when we consider that future judgement, we should remember that God does not abandon his people when we sin. He made a covenant with the Israelites, and gave them a law by which they could live. And God went much, much further than this. In Christ, God entered our world and took on human flesh, and died and rose again from the dead to set us free from our sins, and take us to himself. In the parable, the master simply forgives the debt by his say-so. But in real life, God forgave our sins by suffering their consequences on the Cross, and overcoming them in his resurrection. The forgiveness we have been given comes at great cost, at the cost of the life, death, and resurrection of God the Son, of Jesus. We can refuse this forgiveness, and prefer our own version of justice. And we all know what that looks like in the violence of our world. But if we want to receive that forgiveness, we Christians are called to exercise that forgiveness of sin by sharing in Christ’s life, death and resurrection. We’re called, as Paul puts it in today’s second reading, to live and die for Christ, as people who belong to him. And that will not be easy: as it involved his suffering, genuine forgiveness will cost us suffering too. But we won’t have to bear that suffering alone, because Christ suffers in us and alongside us.

In Christ, instead of letting our sins become the end of the story, God turns it around. He forgives us and asks us to act in the world as those who have been forgiven by him. And this forgiveness is not a one-off thing. We go through life constantly needing and giving forgiveness each day. We struggle with this, but God helps this by putting the fact of his forgiveness front and centre in our lives in the Church. At every Mass, a sinner stands at the altar, and repeats the words of Jesus, to offer and enter into the sacrifice of Christ by which God forgives our sins. In every confession, one sinner listens to the sins of another, and forgives them on behalf of God. If we wish to become people of forgiveness as God calls us to be, then we need to keep consciously bringing our sins to God. Every night, it is a good idea to review that day, and where we have sinned and moved away from God, and genuinely ask God for forgiveness. We need to keep coming back to confession, even if we come back carrying in the same sins again and again, because in this way we bring before God who we are, so that he can heal us. And we need to keep coming back to Mass, because there we participate in Christ’s sacrifice. At Mass, we receive Jesus into our very bodies so that he can forgive and heal us from within. And in that way, continually receiving the forgiveness of our Father in heaven, we too will be better able to forgive our brothers and sisters from our heart.

Fr Robert Krishna, OP teaches Biblical Studies at Holy Name of Mary Seminary, Honiara, Solomon Islands and is currently assigned to St Laurence's Priory, North Adelaide, South Australia.