A homily for the Second Sunday of Easter, April 27, 2025
Acts 5:12-16, Revelation 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19, John 20:19-31
It seems like forever that people have disagreed on whether it’s better to forgive and forget or forgive and remember whenever someone — or some institution — has done wrong by us.
Both sides make strong cases.
Those who’d forgive and forget wipe the slate clean. You’re sorry; I forgive you; let’s pretend the whole thing never happened. It’s a lot less to carry around when we’re all bearing crosses of some sort.
Then again, those who forgive and remember choose to watch out for the same thing happening again. Yes, I forgive you, but I also have my eye on you. You say you’re sorry, and I mostly believe you, but I’m on guard. My radar is on. I’m wearing armor. Fool me once, etc.
Definitely an either-or proposition.
But regardless of which they choose, everyone seems to agree on one thing: They forgive the offender.
Which is exactly what Jesus wants.
Everything Jesus did on Earth, right through his gruesome Passion and Death, was all about forgiveness. He healed the sick; he gave sight, speech and hearing to those who’d lost it or never had it; he enabled the disabled. Not with lightning flashes, puffs of smoke and some bogus incantations, but with a loving, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Jesus halted a ritual stoning of the woman caught in adultery, saying that if no one was there to condemn her, then neither would he. She repented and he forgave her, on behalf of his heavenly Father, then challenged her to go and stop sinning.
That’s just one of countless examples of how forgiveness changed lives, including that of the Christ, who suffered because of his radical notion of kindness and harmony.
Jesus, the most innocent man who ever lived or ever will live, accepted humiliation, torture and crucifixion to beg God to forgive humankind for the sin of Adam and Eve. To forgive imperfect humans for every transgression they had committed since the dawn of time until the end of the world. Lord knows, there have been billions and quadrillions.
And through his Son’s ultimate sacrifice, God did forgive, throwing wide the gates of Heaven, with eternal life of joy and pure love awaiting all of God’s children.
Jesus, who will pass judgment on the Last Day but avoided doing so as a wandering rabbi, gave us an example we all should follow. And, arguably, no one followed that example better than Pope Francis, who, when asked if certain people were true followers of Christ, said, “Who am I to judge?”
Who are any of us?
Now, as we hear today in our passage from John’s Gospel, Jesus gave the Apostles and all the presbyters since then the power and obligation to hold back forgiveness if they think it’s the right thing to do. That retaining of forgiveness, of absolution, is reserved for people who really aren’t sorry for what they’ve done to offend God and their neighbors. It’s reserved for people who, when told by God through God’s representative on Earth to go and sin no more, instead just thumb their noses.
None of us should be those people.
Miraculously and gloriously, God is always about forgiveness and mercy. God wants us on the straight path home to him, always basking in the Light of Christ that warms our faces, our hearts, our spirits, and calls to us even when we choose to ignore it.
Jesus gave us, his Mystical Body, the beautiful Sacrament of Reconciliation, otherwise known as How We Can Get Reconnected With God.
Our community celebration of the Mass gives us three distinct opportunities to seek God’s forgiveness for any and every way we may have strayed.
Barely after the start of Mass, we pray, “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. Shortly before we receive the Eucharist, we share in the Our Father, in which we ask God to “forgive us our trespasses.” And immediately before Communion, we pray: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.”
Ah, yes, three: that mystical Trinitarian number…
We have the Lord’s Prayer available to us every day of the week, every hour of the day.
We have the example of our dearly departed Holy Father, who was known throughout his 12-year papacy for asking everyone and anyone to pray for him, a sinner.
A sinner, the same as all of us.
Every time we ask forgiveness from God or another person, as well as every time we forgive someone, we lighten the load we carry, our daily Crosses.
Every time we ask forgiveness from God or another person, as well as every time we forgive someone, we evict the ill will that’s getting rent-free space in our heads.
Every time we ask forgiveness from God or another person, as well as every time we forgive someone, we take another step toward a world of peace.
God’s peace.
