10 March 2026 – Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent
Daniel 3:25, 34–43; Matthew 18:21–35
Homily
This business of seven times and seventy times seven is a very old story. It dates back to the time of Cain and Abel. After Abel's murder, according to the account in Genesis, God drove Cain out of Paradise. Cain then said to God, ‘If you drive me out today from the face of the ground, I shall be hidden from your face, and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.’ And the Lord replied, ‘If anyone kills Cain, he will be avenged seven times over.’ And a few generations later, Lamech, Cain's grandson, took two wives, Ada and Zilla, and said to them, rather boastfully, "Ada and Zilla, hear my voice! Wives of Lamech, listen to my words! Yes, I have killed a man for a wound, a child for a bruise. Yes, Cain will be avenged seven times, but Lamech seventy-seven times."
We can therefore immediately see how far we have come since those early days of humanity to the time of Jesus, and the difference between the teachings of the Old Testament and those of Jesus. Instead of taking vengeance seven times or seventy-seven times, we are now called to forgive not only seven times, but seventy-seven times.
I did indeed mention ‘the path travelled’. Indeed, the concept of forgiveness appears very early in the Old Testament—already in the Book of Exodus, which speaks of the Lord as a ‘God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger and full of love’ (Exodus 34:6-7), as well as in the teachings of the great prophets, such as Daniel, from whom we had a beautiful text as our first reading.
The ancients readily gave numbers a symbolic value that we are less sensitive to. In biblical culture, the number seven signified completeness. At the time of Christ, rabbinical schools had different teachings concerning the number of times one should forgive someone who had offended us. The most generous asked us to forgive up to four times. When Peter asks Jesus if we should forgive up to seven times, he is actually asking if we should always forgive (seven being the symbol of completeness). And when Jesus replies that we should forgive seventy times seven times, he is simply saying that we must absolutely always forgive.
And to illustrate His teaching, Jesus tells the parable of the man whose master had forgiven him an enormous debt, but who immediately attacked someone who owed him a ridiculous sum.
The teaching of parables is so clear that they almost never require explanation. This one requires less explanation than any other. The teaching could not be clearer. God's willingness to forgive is unlimited, infinite. Only we can limit it by refusing to forgive. And the best way to refuse God's forgiveness is to refuse to identify with Him, by refusing to forgive our brothers.
Forgiveness is difficult, but it is also demanding. It is quite different from amnesty, which is often nothing more than self-amnesty, such as that proclaimed by the generals of certain dictatorships. Such amnesties often only confer impunity on crimes that demand not vengeance but punishment; and they prevent justice from being done to the victims of these crimes. True forgiveness is quite different. It restores bonds of love between brothers and sisters who recognize each other as children of the same father.
Let us ask our Father, God of forgiveness and tenderness, to place in each of our hearts, as well as in the relationships between peoples and between groups within peoples, and also within the Church, this evangelical attitude of forgiveness.
Armand VEILLEUX