Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost – September 17, 2023

Reflections on the Gospel for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 17, 2023
Then Peter came and said to him, &quote ;Lord, if another member of the church sins against
me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "Not seven
times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. For this reason the kingdom of heaven may
be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began
the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he
could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and
all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him,
saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' And out of pity for him,
the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he
went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and
seizing him by the throat, he said, 'Pay what you owe.' Then his fellow slave fell down
and pleaded with him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' But he refused; then
he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves
saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to
their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, 'You
wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not
have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?' And in anger his lord
handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly
Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from
your heart." -Matthew 18:21-35
Sheila Cassidy is an English doctor who has worked extensively in the hospice movement.
During the 1970’s she worked in Chile. She was caught up in the violence resulting from the
military coup against Salvador Allende in 1975. She was arrested and tortured, until her release
was obtained later in 1975 after intervention by the British government. She wrote a book
about this experience, Audacity to Believe.
I've never met my torturers. My forgiveness of them is from God. Intellectually I think they
were very wounded people. I believe the capacity to inflict pain is in all of us.
Sheila Cassidy
-from an interview
I would never say to someone ‘you must forgive’. I would not dare. Who am I to tell a woman
whose father abused her or a mother whose daughter has been raped that she must forgive? I
can only say: ‘However much we have been wronged, however justified our hatred, if we
cherish it, it will poison us……We must pray for the power to forgive, for it is in forgiving that we
are healed.
-Sheila Cassidy
“Seventy times Seven” The Tablet March 2, 1991

I behaved neither more nor less bravely than the majority of the girls… but the very fact that I
had suffered to try to protect my friends was an act of witness which made them look
enquiringly at an ideology which they had long since discarded: the Christian belief.
-Sheila Cassidy
Audacity to Believe
A Sufi saint, on pilgrimage to Mecca, having completed the prescribed religious practices, knelt
down and touched his forehead to the ground and prayed: “Allah! I have only one desire in life.
Give me the grace of never offending you again.”
When the All-Merciful heard this he laughed aloud and said, 'That's what they all ask for. But if I
granted everyone this grace, tell me, who would I forgive?”
quoted from Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham
-The Spirituality of Imperfection
If you efface and overlook and forgive, then lo! God is forgiving, merciful.
-Qur'an 64.14
The ultimate experience of forgiveness brings a change of heart, a metanoia of the spirit, after
which every seeming injury, injustice, rejection, past, present or future, every so-called blow of
fate, becomes, as it were, an essential note in the music of God, however discordant it may
sound to our superficial hearing. And the experience excludes nothing- which means that in this
moment of forgiveness all one's sins and weaknesses are included, being at the same time both
remembered and known as the essential darkness which has revealed to us the light.
-Helen M. Luke
Old Age, quoted from Reconciliation
Once a woman has forgiven a man, she must not re-heat his sins for breakfast.
-Marlene Dietrich 1901-1992

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Reflections on the Gospel for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 17, 2023
Then Peter came and said to him, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against
me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "Not seven
times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. For this reason the kingdom of heaven may
be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began
the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he
could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and
all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him,
saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' And out of pity for him,
the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he
went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and
seizing him by the throat, he said, 'Pay what you owe.' Then his fellow slave fell down
and pleaded with him, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' But he refused; then
he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves
saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to
their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, 'You
wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not
have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?' And in anger his lord
handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly
Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from
your heart." -Matthew 18:21-35
Sheila Cassidy is an English doctor who has worked extensively in the hospice movement.
During the 1970’s she worked in Chile. She was caught up in the violence resulting from the
military coup against Salvador Allende in 1975. She was arrested and tortured, until her release
was obtained later in 1975 after intervention by the British government. She wrote a book
about this experience, Audacity to Believe.
I've never met my torturers. My forgiveness of them is from God. Intellectually I think they
were very wounded people. I believe the capacity to inflict pain is in all of us.
Sheila Cassidy
-from an interview
I would never say to someone ‘you must forgive’. I would not dare. Who am I to tell a woman
whose father abused her or a mother whose daughter has been raped that she must forgive? I
can only say: ‘However much we have been wronged, however justified our hatred, if we
cherish it, it will poison us……We must pray for the power to forgive, for it is in forgiving that we
are healed.
-Sheila Cassidy
“Seventy times Seven” The Tablet March 2, 1991

I behaved neither more nor less bravely than the majority of the girls… but the very fact that I
had suffered to try to protect my friends was an act of witness which made them look
enquiringly at an ideology which they had long since discarded: the Christian belief.
-Sheila Cassidy
Audacity to Believe
A Sufi saint, on pilgrimage to Mecca, having completed the prescribed religious practices, knelt
down and touched his forehead to the ground and prayed: “Allah! I have only one desire in life.
Give me the grace of never offending you again.”
When the All-Merciful heard this he laughed aloud and said, 'That's what they all ask for. But if I
granted everyone this grace, tell me, who would I forgive?”
quoted from Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham
-The Spirituality of Imperfection
If you efface and overlook and forgive, then lo! God is forgiving, merciful.
-Qur'an 64.14
The ultimate experience of forgiveness brings a change of heart, a metanoia of the spirit, after
which every seeming injury, injustice, rejection, past, present or future, every so-called blow of
fate, becomes, as it were, an essential note in the music of God, however discordant it may
sound to our superficial hearing. And the experience excludes nothing- which means that in this
moment of forgiveness all one's sins and weaknesses are included, being at the same time both
remembered and known as the essential darkness which has revealed to us the light.
-Helen M. Luke
Old Age, quoted from Reconciliation
Once a woman has forgiven a man, she must not re-heat his sins for breakfast.
-Marlene Dietrich 1901-1992