First Reading
Sirach 27:30-28:7
1. Is it harder for you to forgive someone or to ask for forgiveness? How good are you at overlooking the faults of others as Sirach suggests? Do you forgive yourself?
2. When you want to “hug wrath and anger tight” (paraphrase of reading), do you have ways, or people, or places who will help your anger calm down?
Second Reading
Romans 14:7-9
1. “For if we live, we live for the Lord.” Sometimes God asks people
to do extraordinary things. But most of the time not. How do you
live your ordinary life for the Lord? Can you find God in the
ordinary moments? If you did that regularly, would your life be
extraordinary?
2. God created all things in love, entered creation and rescued us
himself. He does not leave us alone in this world or the next. Does
thinking about this help you want to “live for the Lord”?
Gospel
Matthew 18:21-35
1. Do you think God wants you to forgive your neighbor just for your
neighbor's sake, or for yours too? How did Jesus "take away the sins
of the world?"
2. Pope Francis says that Jesus asks us to do something radical,
when he asks us to forgive our brothers and sisters unreservedly.
Can you think of ways you can do this?
Jesus asks us to believe that forgiveness is the door which leads to reconciliation. In telling us to forgive our brothers [and sisters] unreservedly, he is asking us to do something utterly radical, but he also gives us the grace to do it. What appears, from a human perspective, to be impossible, impractical and even at times repugnant, he makes possible and fruitful through the infinite power of his cross. The cross of Christ reveals the power of God to bridge every division, to heal every wound, and to reestablish the original bonds of brotherly love.
Homily of Pope Francis
Holy Mass for Peace and Reconciliation
August 18, 2014