Matthew 18 (reprieve) - forgiving one another

part 2 of my 2 part series on forgiveness yesterday. again, like last week, i had to change it up a fair bit. but that was a good thing, it meant it was fresh, and didn't feel like a recycled talk.

it was good to read the lead article in the catechist, on forgiveness in the face of unrepentance.

i think the issue is that we have one word, 'forgiveness', and we use it to cover two semantic fields:

1. forgiving the person who repents, holding no bitterness, no grudge, but freely forgiving as we have been forgiven
2. a readiness to forgive, to stand, arms outstretched, again holding no bitterness, but in the face of unrepentance, never shutting off the possibility of a reconciliation, although that is not at the present time a real possibility

thankfully there was a question in question time precisely on this, which meant i was able to draw the two threads of the talk together - both the readiness, as well as the actual forgiving.

a good case study is forgiving the dead person - you can't actually forgive them, in that a relationship is restored. but what you can do is give up the bitterness and hatred that would otherwise destroy you.