Dear Saints,

On January 1, 2002, with the chaos of terror still reverberating around the world, Pope John Paul II delivered a message through which the peace of forgiveness reverberated all the more. “Forgiveness,” he said, “is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil.”

This Sunday’s Gospel is among the most challenging we’ll ever encounter, in that it calls on us to forgive those who have wronged us, not just once but over and over and over again. How are our hearts to withstand such an unnatural choice without breaking? The answer is sometimes they don’t. Forgiveness often does feel heartbreaking, because it “always involves an apparent short-term loss for a real long-term gain.”

Because the decision to forgive defies our instincts of self-defense and preservation, it takes a lot of practice. Like any act of moral courage and conviction, we’re far more likely to choose forgiveness if we’ve already made it a habit of heart and mind, and that requires good training. That’s one of the reasons I’m so thankful for our excellent Religious Education program. Under the loving partnership of their parents and teachers, our community’s children become habituated to taking the Christ-like way. They learn to trust that God’s love for them is so all-encompassing and sufficient, they can make the tough choices - like forgiveness - without fear of the short-term loss, because the long-term gain is life itself.

Christ’s Peace,

Father Daniel

δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ

NB: Religious Education for children in grades K-8 and starts on Sunday, September 24th. Contact our Director of Religious Education, Faith Rose, frose@olmcboonton.org, for more information.