Below is the full text of Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila’s pastoral note for Lent 2023.
As we begin this season of Lent, I want to remind each of us that mercy is at the heart of the Gospel message, of the essential importance that forgiveness plays in our lives, and how crucial it is for our country right now. Those of us who have received the mercy of God play a unique role in extending forgiveness to others and healing our land.
In this pastoral note, I want to emphasize four points about forgiveness and mercy and why they are especially needed now. First, forgiveness is God’s nature. Jesus is clear that he did not come to call the righteous, but to call sinners to repentance (Lk 5:32). The mercy of God the Father, who welcomes sinners with open arms and propels us to conversion, is a gift to everyone seeking it and is meant to be shared with others.
Second, you have been forgiven by God for your sins, and in turn you need to forgive others for theirs. Forgiveness is not only in God’s nature, but it is required of those who have received it. We can ask God for help if we find it difficult to understand what it means to forgive or how to do it.
Third, forgiving others is necessary for our own healing and freedom.
And fourth, it is desperately needed to renew our society.
In the story of creation, human beings are the pinnacle of the visible created world. The reason for this humbling distinction is revealed in the book of Genesis: “Then God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’” (Gen 1:26). This is an honor only humans and angels have received. Since we are made in the image and likeness of God, we can only understand ourselves if we understand who God is.
In short, God is communion, a communion of three persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is not just loving, he is love itself, and our God who is love is also merciful. When Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees, a powerful legalistic Jewish sect, for dining with sinners, Jesus justifies his decision and refers them to the prophet Hosea, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (Mt 9:12-14). The Son of God became man to bring us mercy, to forgive sins, and to heal.
Yet even before the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God’s desires to show mercy and offer forgiveness were abundant to his people. The prophets, Psalms, and stories of the Old Testament are full of God’s promises of forgiveness.
The Psalmist captures this beautifully when he writes, “Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger, abounding in kindness. God does not always rebuke, nurses no lasting anger, has not dealt with us as our sins merit, nor requited us as our deeds deserve… As far as the east is from the west, so far have our sins been removed from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on the faithful” (Ps 103:8-14).
This is who God is. God himself desires to be merciful. He desires to forgive us in our sin. It can be easy for us to imagine God as angry with me, not distinguishing the sin from the sinner, unapproving, and unpleasable. While God is angry at our sins, he is so because he loves us. He is always calling the sinner back to him. When we acknowledge that our view of the Heavenly Father is inconsistent with the Gospel, we must ask ourselves, who told us God is like this? Where did this image come from?
The false image of God comes from the evil one, and his purpose, which has never wavered since the time of Adam and Eve, is to separate us from God the Father.
In quoting the prophet Hosea, Jesus points us to one of the most profound stories of God’s mercy in the Old Testament. Hosea lived in the mid-700s B.C., and God commanded him to marry Gomer, a harlot. Gomer, because of her brokenness, was repeatedly unfaithful to Hosea yet God instructed Hosea to continually forgive her.
God used the tragedy of marital infidelity that Hosea experienced as an image of God’s own relationship with his people. At that time in history, the nation of Israel was, simply put, a mess. Despite their many blessings and God’s repeated forgiveness, the nation of Israel was a people unfaithful to the Lord and in desperate need of repentance. God repeatedly forgave the sins of Israel and asked Hosea to do the same with Gomer. Today, God asks us to do the same with those who sin against us.
Jesus himself taught the Our Father (Mt 6:9-13) and is clear that we are to ask for the forgiveness of our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. The word “as” makes this a conditional phrase. Jesus further explains, “If you forgive others their transgression, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions” (Mt 6:14-15). This is not a suggestion; it is a stipulation for receiving God’s forgiveness.
Jesus makes the same point again in the Gospel of Mark: “When you stand to pray, forgive anyone against whom you have a grievance, so that your heavenly Father may in turn forgive you your transgressions” (Mk 11:25-26). We must take seriously the need to forgive others and recognize that our own reception of the Father’s forgiveness depends upon it.
We see in the parable of the unforgiving servant a practical example of how we are to respond to the great gift of God’s forgiveness and the consequences of withholding forgiveness. The telling of the parable is provoked by Peter asking Jesus, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (Mt 18:21).
Jesus proceeds to tell Peter the parable about the king who decided to settle accounts with his servants (Mt 18:21-35). I would encourage you to read the full parable, but in short, a king forgives his servant a debt that is so high it would take lifetimes to repay. Later, that same servant refuses to forgive one of his own servants a much smaller debt. The king, hearing of his servant’s lack of mercy, hands his servant over to be tortured. Despite receiving mercy, the king’s servant was unwilling to “pay it forward.” Jesus concludes the parable with a sharp warning: “So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart” (Mt 18:35).
Forgiving others is not optional precisely because our Father in heaven has forgiven us an unpayable debt. While we may be faced with the challenge of forgiving terrible and heinous acts, we must remember that only the spilt blood of Jesus Christ could forgive us our sins and offer us salvation. What we have been forgiven will always exceed what we are asked to forgive. Pope Francis writes, “If you do not forgive, God will not forgive you. Let us consider, … whether we forgive or whether we can forgive … But if you cannot do it, ask the Lord to give you the strength to do so: Lord, help me to forgive.”
Anyone who has had to forgive someone knows that it is not easy. Even small children have a tough time accepting the apology of another child who has hurt them. As we grow and the transgressions against us become more complicated and even malicious, forgiveness can appear to be an impossible hurdle to overcome. Yet, Pope Francis urges us to ask the Lord for the strength to forgive.