This Sermon is prepared by
Rev.Fr.Peter Jayakanthan sss
Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament
Corpus Christi Catholic Church,
Houston, Texas, US
23rd Sunday of Ordinary TimeHarming outsider….! or Healing insider…!Ez33:7-9; Rom 13:8-10; Mt18:15-20Dear Sisters, Brothers and Children, we thank God for offering us another new week. We shall bring all our experiences and encounters, place them on this altar and offer them to the Lord with gratitude for all the opportunities. We will continue to lift up all the innocent victims and suffering Christian brothers and sisters in Iraq that they may feel they are part of the suffering body of Christ and branches of the Church tree. Eucharist as communion will lead us to experience oneness in the Lord.Who forgives easily at your home and how? Girl answered, my mom and grandma argue and fight every time, but my mom forgives immediately because my grandma has Alzheimer. What happens when I don’t forgive?…..the computer answer is that my antivirus expired or has become inactive. What happens when I fail to forgive the hurt others have caused me?……the memory becomes overloaded and my life-computer slows down. What is the result if I don’t make efforts to forgive…..my life-computer is hung. Yes if I don’t forgive, I lose inner peace, I feel irritated, I feel angry, my heart pounds, I get a headache…so it is better to forgive than feel sick physically, mentally and spiritually. By allowing the hurts to harm us on the inside, they can also cause us to become harmful-outsiders, separated from the community through hate, anger and revenge. When we forgive, we restore relationships. In extending a merciful hand to those who hurt us, we begin the journey of forgiveness. There's a Spanish story of a father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read: Dear Paco, meet me in front of this newspaper office at noon on Saturday. All is forgiven. I love you. Your Father. On Saturday 800 Pacos showed up, looking for forgiveness and love from their fathers. People look for forgiveness, healing and seek forgiveness from the Lord and from the dear ones. Because, then you feel part of a family, part of a community and the whole Church as a son or daughter of God. Forgiveness makes us insiders….if we don’t forgive we remain as outsiders. We may say, how can I forget the long years of hurt in my married life before a divorce, or after? How can I forget the many years of rejection by my siblings? How can I delete the experience of humiliation by my colleague? How can I take away the abuse and bullying moments of my past life? How can I bury the times I was victimized for someone’s fault? Our human memory may not be faster than a computer memory, but it is stronger, even if we have Alzheimer. We are called to forgive. Forgiveness is not forgetting. “Forgive and forget” seem to go together. However, the process of forgiving involves acknowledging to yourself the wrong that was done to you, reflecting on it, and deciding how you want to think about it. Focusing on forgetting a wrong might lead to denying or suppressing feelings about it, but we don’t have to forget in order to forgive. Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky calls forgiveness “a shift in thinking” toward someone who has wronged you, “such that your desire to harm that person has decreased and your desire to do him good has increased.” The readings today invite us to be an insider, to be included as part of the community through the practice of constant forgiveness. The Evangelist Matthew writes the message of Jesus’ continuous stream of forgiveness to the broken, divided and wounded communities. In the passage, we observe the communion element of our faith and the living witness of community. “Two or three gathered in my name” speaks about the community gathered in the name of Jesus. The verse, “If your brother sins against you”, or in some translations, "If another member of the church sins against you”: here the Church signifies the community gathered in different places, with one mind and one heart to pray, to share and to celebrate the Easter Eucharist experience every week. It consists of the followers of Jesus, those of John the Baptist and the newly joined Jewish Christians. This community was being influenced by three diverse groups: the Jewish people who were not ready to accept the Galilean Jesus, the pagans who followed idolatry and the Romans who were keen on establishing their rule and power. Matthew addressed the people of the Christian community who were half-heartedly trying to be part of both, saying ‘either be insider or outsider’, either you are excluded or included…your running into harm hinders and slows down the community activities. Tell your brothers, ‘you are forgiven, come be part of our community, and invite them to be insiders.’ No condemnation…rather acknowledgement of forgiveness. In this way we become healing-insiders. In the first reading, we have the great Prophet Ezekiel, who was taken by the ruler to be with the exiled people in Babylonia. God of Yahweh told Ezekiel to be the watchman, to keep the people inside the folk community with constant forgiveness. When I sin, I harm the community by breaking away, affecting the community. Sin keeps me aloof, separated from the tree of life. The Lord called Ezekiel to be a guardian of the people through forgiveness in order to build the community, to keep their faith strong, and alive. Ezekiel knew the secret to being a healing-insider, through forgiveness. One afternoon I was called to offer Sacrament of Anointing to a 14 year girl before her serious neurosurgery. She was sedated and in semi-conscious state, and only a male member of the family was present was there. Later, I went again after few hours to check on her, the surgery still in progress, and her uncle who was in the family waiting area. He explained to me that the girl’s dad had been arguing and threatening the family members for few days. On an unexpected day the argument escalated into a fight…suddenly he picked up the gun and shot her sister, her mom, her, and he shot himself. She managed to run out of the house while bleeding. Her mom was in another hospital, the younger sister died, and the father who shot himself died. So the girl’s brain must have been affected. During a visit some days later when she was in recovery, she asked me, “where is my baby sister?” Hopefully in heaven. She again asked will my dad get to heaven. She never excluded her dad, she could not forget that bitter day, but she was a healing-insider, she went home physically, as a spiritually healed person. Forgiveness on forgetting destroys the paralyzing our community and keep us as harming outsiders. Focusing on forgiving prevents me from bitterness and negativity and keep me a healing-insider in the community. Lord, keep me a healing insider-Amen. 
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