August 14, 2025 – Thursday of the 19th week, odd year
Joshua 3:7-17; Matthew 18:21-19, 1
Homily
Rabbinical schools asked their disciples to forgive their wives, children, and brothers a certain number of times, with the number varying from school to school. Peter wants to know what “rate” Jesus applies. Is it stricter than that of the school that asked us to forgive a brother who had offended us up to seven times?
Jesus responds with a parable that takes the person out of this system of rates and invites him to imitate God's forgiveness. Matthew emphasizes the incredible difference between ten thousand talents and a hundred coins (a bit like the difference between the beam and the speck in the eye—cf. Mt 7:1-5), to show the infinite distance between human ideas about debt and justice and those of God.
Already in the Old Testament, we see the Lord as a “God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger and full of love, who remains faithful for thousands of generations” (see Ex 34:6-7). This boundless love does not, however, mean indifference to sin. When His people sin, the Lord is full of anger; but even then He shows His mercy by calling His people to conversion
The whole life of Jesus, especially His death on the cross, was also an exercise in boundless mercy. Wherever He went, Jesus waited for the prodigal son. He did not come for those who thought themselves righteous, but for repentant sinners. He sought them out like a shepherd seeks a lost sheep, like a woman seeks her last coin, which she has lost. Some seem to have been the privileged objects of His mercy, especially in Saint Luke. They are the poor, women, foreigners—all those who were excluded or rejected from society by one prohibition or another.
The parable told by Jesus in today's Gospel contains a theology of the present time, which is the time of the Church—a time given to us for conversion. Matthew thus places the duty of forgiveness in an eschatological context. The last days will come in the form of a sabbatical year (Deut. 15:1-5), during which God will forgive humanity's enormous debt and offer justification. Some, however, will refuse this gift and condemn themselves to endless misery.
We could say that we are in a time of “probation” or “parole.” In most countries, our current legal system includes the concept of “probation,” which is a temporary and conditional suspension of a sentence, accompanied by a period of probation and measures of assistance and supervision.
However, in the story of this parable, the man finds himself between two judgments (verses 25-26 and 31-35). The first judgment ended with the debt being forgiven. The second judgment will depend on how the time between the two is used. The man will be definitively forgiven and justified if he uses the probationary period given to him to forgive others and do justice. Christian life is, in a way, a time of probation or parole. We have been acquitted of our sins. However, this acquittal must be ratified at the end of our life here on earth, and will only be ratified to the extent that we ourselves have exercised forgiveness towards others.
The last words of the parable: “So also will my heavenly Father do to you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart,” remind us of the request we make every day in the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive... "
Among the various paths that lead to the discovery of God, one of the most important is the experience that sinful human beings have of God's mercy. However, the forgiveness we have received will only remain in force to the extent that we too have forgiven others.
Armand Veilleux
Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Martyr