Sermon 114A

SERMON 114/A

On the Words of the Gospel, Luke 17:34
"Forgive, and you will be forgiven"

That it is "seven times." The beginning of faith is from God.

We have heard a most health-giving commandment from the holy Gospel, that we should forgive the sin of the brother who has sinned against us. Let it not suffice to have done this once, but whenever he sins, it must be forgiven, if he asks for pardon. Therefore, he says: If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day he turns back to you saying: I repent, forgive him. If you understand "seven times in a day," therefore, it means whenever; for indeed the number seven is often used to represent completeness. Hence that: A righteous man will fall seven times and rise again; that is, whenever he is humbled by some tribulation, he is not abandoned, but is delivered from all his troubles. Hence it is also written: I will praise you seven times a day; for "seven times a day" means always. Therefore, "seven times a day" is the same as what is said elsewhere: His praise shall continually be in my mouth. For we do not only praise the Lord with our tongue, and when we are silent, we do not praise Him; indeed, in all our good thoughts, in all our actions and good manners, we praise Him from whom we are glad to have received these. For we also see the Apostles requesting that their faith be increased. Did they give themselves the first fruits of faith, and then ask the Lord for its increase? By no means. Therefore, they requested that He who began it may Himself perfect it, according to the Apostle who says: For he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the end. And what we have just sung, beloved, what does it show? Lead me, O Lord, in Your way, and I will walk in Your truth. He does not say: Lead me to Your way; for He also does this; but not, when He has led to the way, does He abandon. It is therefore less to have led to the way, unless it is followed by leading in the way, and culminates in leading to the homeland. Therefore, since we have all good things from God, in all our good works, when we think of the giver of all good things, we praise God endlessly: and when, if we live well, we praise God endlessly, let us bless the Lord at all times, and let His praise be continually in our mouth for this reason. He says: I will praise you seven times a day: signifying completeness by the number seven.

The parable of the merciless debtor towards his debtor.

Therefore, if your brother sins against you seven times in a day and comes and says, "I repent," forgive him. Do not grow weary of always forgiving the penitent. If you were not a debtor, you could be a harsh creditor without consequence; but because you are a debtor who has a debtor, and furthermore you are a debtor to Him who has no debt, consider what you will do with your debtor: for this is what God will do with His. Listen and be afraid: "Let my heart rejoice, so that I may fear Your name." If you rejoice when you are forgiven, fear to forgive. For the same Savior shows what you should fear when He presents the servant in the Gospel with whom the lord reckoned and found him a debtor of ten thousand talents. He ordered him to be sold and all that he had, and to be repaid. He, falling at the feet of his lord, began to plead for an extension, and deserved remission. But he, going out from the presence of his lord, with all his debt forgiven, found his fellow servant who owed him a hundred denarii and began to violently demand payment. When his heart rejoiced at being forgiven, he did not fear the name of his Lord God. The servant said to his fellow servant what the servant had said to the Lord: "Have patience with me, and I will repay you." But he replied, "No, you will repay today." It was reported to the master of the house; and, as you know, he not only threatened that he would not forgive him in the future if he found a debtor, but he also reinstated the entire debt he had forgiven and ordered him to repay all that he had given. Therefore, how much we must fear, my brothers, if we have faith, if we believe the Gospel, if we do not think the Lord is a liar? Let us fear, let us watch, let us beware, let us forgive. For what do you lose by forgiving? You grant pardon, not money.

You use money well if you do not love it.

Although even in distributing money, you should not be dry trees. In distributing money, you give to the needy; in granting pardon, you forgive the sinner; the Lord sees both, rewards both, and commended both in one place: "Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you." But you neither forgive nor distribute: you hold onto anger, you keep your money. Observe, anger, where you cannot be freed by money: "Treasures will not profit the wicked." This is not my judgment, but divine judgment: those who have read know. I read to speak, I believed to express: treasures will not profit the wicked. They seem to profit, but they will not. Perhaps in the present: perhaps, if they profit somewhat; but on that day, they will not profit. They may be held and will not profit; they may be despised and will profit. You will use righteousness well if you love it: because if you do not love it, you will not have it. You will use strength, temperance, chastity, charity, and other virtues of the mind well if you love them: you will use money well if you do not love it. Finally, if money is loved, let it be stored in heaven; if it is feared to be lost, let it be kept in a safer place. For your servant does not keep faith with you in guarding money, and your Lord deceives you. Do you not hear Him saying: "Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven?" Behold, He did not command you to lose, but to migrate: "Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where a thief does not approach, nor does a moth corrupt; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." You store up treasure on earth, you place your heart on earth. What will happen to your heart on earth? It decays, it rots, it turns to ashes. Lift up what you love, and love it there. And do not think that you will receive what you place: for you place mortal things, you will receive immortal things; you place temporal things, you will receive eternal things; you place earthly things, you will receive heavenly things; finally, you distribute what your Lord has given you, and you will receive a reward from your Lord Himself.

The poor porters carried money into heaven.

But you will say: How will I be placed in heaven? By what machines am I going to ascend into heaven with my gold and silver? Why do you seek machines? Migrate. Your carriers are the poor, and through the contrition of the world, they have become carriers. Finally, you are making a transfer: here you give, and there you receive. Certainly, if you give here, you will receive there, and from whom you give, from that one you will receive. Let not only a ragged beggar come to your mind; but let this come to your mind: "When you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me." In the poor, He receives, who made the poor: from the rich, He receives, who made the rich; for what He gave, from that He receives; you give from His, not from yours, to Christ. Why do you boast, because you have found much here? Reflect on how you came. You have found everything here; and if you use the many things found poorly, pride has swelled in you. Did you not come forth naked from your mother's womb? Therefore, give, give, lest you lose what you have. If you give, you will find there: if you do not give, you will leave it here; however, whether you give or do not give, you are going to migrate. But sometimes, even if it is ridiculous and to be condemned and rejected from the ears of the faithful, nevertheless avarice unwilling to distribute to the poor from its abundance has some excuse. For it says to itself: If I give, I will not have; and by giving much, I will be in need: and later I will seek from whom I myself may receive. It must abound for me, not only for sustenance and covering, and for my house and family, but also for good cases, so that I may have what to spend on detractors, so that I may have from where to redeem: human affairs are full of cases; I ought to keep for myself, from where I can liberate myself.

The precept of granting forgiveness does not hinder discipline.

You say these things when you wish to save money; what will you say when you do not wish to grant forgiveness to the sinner? If you are reluctant to give money to the needy, give forgiveness to the penitent. What do you lose if you give? I know what you lose, I know what you miss; I see, but you lose for your own good: you lose anger, you lose indignation, you lose hatred of your brother from your heart. Let these remain there, where will you be? Anger, lasting indignation, hatred, what does it make of you? What evil does it not do to you? Listen to Scripture: He who hates his brother is a murderer. Therefore, even if he sins against me seven times in a day, shall I forgive him? Forgive. Christ said this, the truth said this, to whom you sang: Lead me, Lord, in your way, and I will walk in your truth. Do not fear, he does not deceive you. But you will say, there will be no discipline; all sins will always be unpunished; for it is always pleasing to sin, when he who sins thinks you will always forgive. It is not so. Both discipline should be vigilant, and kindness should not slumber. For do you think you are returning evil for evil when you give discipline to the sinner? God forbid: you return good for evil; and then you do not do well, if you do not give it. Sometimes even discipline itself is tempered with gentleness: it has been given. But is it another thing to extinguish it by negligence, and another to temper it with gentleness? Let discipline be vigilant: forgive, and strike. Look at the Lord himself, listen to the Lord himself, think to whom we, daily beggars, say: Forgive us our debts. And do you suffer tedium when your brother continually says to you: Forgive me, penitent? How often do you say this to God? Do you cease from this supplication in every prayer? Do you want God to say to you: Behold, I forgave yesterday, I forgave the day before yesterday, I forgave through so many days; how often do I still forgive? Do you not want him to say to you: You always come with those words, you always say: Forgive us our debts, you always beat your chest; and like hard iron, you do not amend. But because we were discussing discipline, does not the Lord our God forgive us because we say with faith: Forgive us our debts? And yet, although he forgives us, what is said of him? what is written of him? For whom the Lord loves, he corrects. But perhaps with words? He scourges every son he receives. Let the sinner son not be angry when scourged and corrected, and the only-begotten without sin was worthy to be scourged. Therefore give discipline, but from the heart dismiss anger. For thus the Lord himself said, when he dealt with the debtor, to whom he returned all the debt, because he was inhumane to his fellow servant: So also will your heavenly Father do to you, if you do not forgive each one his brother from your hearts. Where God sees, there forgive; do not lose charity from there, exercise healthy severity; love and strike, love and beat. For sometimes you flatter, and sometimes you are harsh. How do you flatter and are harsh? Because you do not reprove sins; and those sins will destroy him, whom you love perversely by sparing. Consider what your sometimes harsh, sometimes hard word, which will harm, is going to do. Sin devastates the heart, demolishes the inner parts, suffocates the soul, destroys the soul: have mercy, strike.

Sometimes one who is harsh acts more mercifully than one who spares.

Set before yourselves, beloved, in order to understand more clearly what I speak of, two men. A careless little boy wanted to sit where they knew a serpent was hidden in the grass. If he sat, he would be bitten and would die; two men knew this. One said: Do not sit there. He was ignored; he would go to sit, he would go to perish. Another said: He does not want to listen to us; he must be reprimanded, seized, torn away, struck with a blow: let us do whatever we can to save him. Another said: Let him go, do not strike, do not offend, do not harm. Which of these is merciful? The one who spares, so that the man dies by the serpent; or the one who rages, so that the man is saved? And so understand, those who are under your authority, even if you correct them; impose discipline with morals, maintain kindness. Forgive from the heart, let there be no anger within; because recent anger is a thin and seemingly contemptible splinter; recent anger disturbs the eye, like a splinter in the eye: My eye was troubled in anger; but that splinter is nourished by suspicions, strengthened by the passage of time; that splinter will turn into a beam. Old anger becomes hatred; when there is hatred, there will be homicide: Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, it says. And sometimes people with hatred in their hearts rebuke those who are angry. You hold hatred, do you reprimand the angry? You see the splinter in your brother's eye, you do not see the beam in your own. The sermon is concluded. Let the Lord be invoked, that He may deign to grant what He commands: Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.