• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

The reality of sin and forgiveness

Michie

Well-Known Member
Site Supporter
Feb 5, 2002
179,623
64,555
Woods
✟5,677,646.00
Country
United States
Gender
Female
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
A boggy marsh: This is how Dante imagines the reality of anger in his “Inferno.” Greed looks like the eternal weight of a heavy stone pressing against one’s chest. Our readings for this Sunday present these sins in contrast to the blissful happiness of forgiveness.

Matthew’s Gospel offers us other images. Sin, in Matthew 18, is likened to a debt. Indeed, sin is a lack — it is lacking in love. In contrast, Matthew 18 likens the kingdom of heaven to the forgiveness of all debt, of all sin: “Moved with compassion the master of that servant let him go and forgave him the loan” (vs. 27). This imagery gives us a way to envision sin and forgiveness for what they truly are.

In fact, if we might make a brief scriptural tangent, we could look to the prophet Hosea for an even stronger image of sin and forgiveness, also delineated through a financial transaction. Hosea’s wife, Gomer, leaves him for a life of prostitution (cf. Hos 1:2). The Lord tells Hosea that he should go and purchase his wife back — he must literally redeem her as he returns to purchase her in the place she worked. “So I acquired her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley” (Hos 3:2). Imagine how Gomer must have felt in response to such an act of forgiveness!

Continued below.