“Peter asks Jesus a very practical question today: “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?”

I can imagine Peter thinking he was already being very generous. Seven times! For some of us, even once is already difficult. We forgive once, maybe twice. By the third time, we say, “Lord, enough. You forgive him. I’m tired!”

But Jesus tells Peter, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Jesus is not asking Peter to carry a calculator. He is teaching him that Christian forgiveness cannot simply be reduced to numbers.

And the parable gives us three beautiful lessons.

Remember how much God has forgiven you.

The servant in the Gospel owed the king an enormous amount—far beyond his capacity to repay. He begged for mercy, and surprisingly, the king cancelled everything.

That servant is you and me.

How many times have we gone to God carrying the same weaknesses, the same failures, sometimes even the same sins? And still God welcomes us.

Sometimes when someone hurts us, we say, “I cannot forgive this person. You don’t know what he did to me!”

Perhaps the Lord gently asks us, “But do you remember how many times I have forgiven you?”

Before counting the sins of others, remember the mercy you have received.

Mercy received must become mercy given.

Sadly, after being forgiven, the servant went out and found someone who owed him a much smaller amount. He grabbed him and demanded, “Pay what you owe!”

What a contradiction! He wanted mercy for himself but justice for everybody else. And sometimes we are like that.

We go to Confession and say, “Lord, forgive me.” Then we go home and say, “But I will never forgive that person!”

Every time we pray the Our Father, we say: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

God’s mercy is never meant to stop with us. Mercy must pass through us. If God has been patient with me, let me become more patient with others. If God has given me another chance, let me learn to give another chance. If God has forgiven me, let me learn to forgive.

Forgiveness sets our own hearts free.

Forgiveness does not mean saying that what happened was okay.

Some wounds are deep. Some betrayals are painful. Forgiveness does not remove the need for truth, justice, correction, or healthy boundaries.

But forgiveness means saying: “I will not allow what you did to me to turn me into a bitter person.” Because when we refuse to forgive, we think we are punishing the person who hurt us. But many times, that person is sleeping peacefully while we are the ones awake at two o’clock in the morning!

We carry the anger. We carry the resentment. We carry the pain.

Forgiveness is therefore not only a gift we give to another person. It is also a gift we give ourselves.

The stones we carry

A teacher once noticed that one of his students was always angry. The boy had been deeply hurt by someone and could not let go of what had happened.

So the teacher gave him a stone and said, “This stone represents the person who hurt you. Keep it in your pocket.”

The boy carried it everywhere.

At first, it did not bother him very much. But after several days, he began to complain.

“It is heavy. It is uncomfortable. I am tired of carrying it.”

The teacher smiled and said, “Then why don’t you put it down?”

The boy answered, “Because you told me to carry it.”

And the teacher said: “Sometimes nobody is asking us to carry our anger anymore. We are the ones who refuse to put it down.”

That is what unforgiveness can do to us. Someone may have hurt us once, but by holding on to resentment, we allow that hurt to remain with us every day.

Final Words

My dear brothers and sisters, perhaps today Jesus is asking us: What stone are you still carrying?

Whose name is written on that stone?

Forgiveness does not mean that what happened was right. It means that we no longer want the wound to control our hearts.

So today, place that stone into the hands of God. You have carried it long enough. Let God carry it now. And allow yourself to walk free.”