Because Jesus says so

 

Peter approached Jesus and asked him “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21–19:1)

In other words, without limit.  Why?  Well, because Jesus says so – a pretty good reason even if we just stop there.  But Jesus goes on to spell out the reason in the parable of the man who was forgiven a great debt, but then turned around and refused to forgive his fellow servant.

We must forgive, first, because we’ve been forgiven.  Christian ethics has been well characterized as a “therefore” ethics.  God has done this; therefore we must do likewise (out of sheer gratitude if for no other reason).  Christian ethics is not based in philosophy or abstract concepts; it’s based in an action – God’s saving action.  We can never afford to lose sight of God’s action – God’s prior reaching out to us.

But there’s a second reason for His limitless forgiving.  God’s purpose is to save everyone.  As Christians we explicitly take that mission as our own, and we’re empowered to do so by our baptism.  As St. Paul says, in Baptism we have died with Christ. The new life we live is precisely His life, His spirit, living in us (Romans 6).  The person who has offended us is already forgiven by God.  How, then, can we withhold our own forgiveness?  In other words, how can we do so and call ourselves Christian?  When we forgive, we simply make God’s prior forgiveness concrete here and now.  Probably the offender didn’t expect us to be forgiving.  Perhaps we help the offender experience God’s forgiveness in our own.  Perhaps we call both of us to a change of heart.

When we find it impossible to forgive, the one thing we know will help is God’s grace.  A grace is a specific act of God’s love for us personally.  It’s specified to affect us where we need help, light, guidance, strength, courage, and even the desire to speak or act in real situations where it would be best in God’s eyes and in our own to do so.  Asking for the grace to forgive a particularly deep hurt, where doing so seems impossible, is a perfect case in point.  Nothing is impossible for God (Matthew 19:26), and God wants to be there, in our hearts, helping us when we cannot alone bring ourselves to forgive those who hurt us.

No one can expect to go through life without being hurt by others.  We wish we could.  We wish our children could.  But we’re all vulnerable to being used or abused, neglected or abandoned by others when they become greedy, ambitious or arrogant.  When that happens, we’re all called to be forgivers.  When it’s hard to forgive, we ask for the grace to do so.  As we mature in our Faith, the grace abides.   This in turn enables us to become men and women with the gift, rooted in experience, to help others who have been hurt:  to become apostles of reconciliation.   This is an enormously important mission, given the great need for reconciliation throughout our world, in any and every place the Lord may place us.