The God of forgiveness, mercy and life be always with you. R/ And also with you.
Introduction by the Celebrant
A. Forgive: Enter God's World
We are all familiar with the saying: "To err is human, to forgive is divine." Perhaps we forget the second part too easily: by forgiving one another, we do what God does all the time for us. If we cannot forgive we have not learned to love deeply and we are still far from the gospel. We begin this eucharist by asking pardon from the Lord and from one another.
Michel DeVerteuil General Comments Today’s passage deals with the crucial issue of forgiveness, surely the most pressing of all our human problems, as individuals, as communities and as a human family. The future of humanity is in the hands of those who can forgive.
Michel DeVerteuil General Comments This passage is very different from those of the two previous Sundays. They were dramatic stories, marked by deep emotions and with deep implications for the characters involved. This is a little gem of a passage but with little drama, a very practical, common-sense teaching on that most common and most prosaic of community problems – conflict. It is deep wisdom teaching which continues to be valid for our time. Management has become a science today, and Jesus’ teaching stands up well as a model of how to “manage” conflict in any situation.
A 17-year-old Russian girl has been arrested for allegedly being the mastermind behind the deadly Blue Whale Challenge, that encouraged players to commit suicide.
The teenager, who has now been arrested, allegedly threatened her victims that she would murder them or their families if they did not complete the tasks that were set.
