September 13
Saint John Chrysostom
Today's Gospel: Matthew
18:21-35
Today’s
Gospel: Matthew 18:21-19:1
(The Unforgiving Servant)
But that same servant, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denari; and seizing him by the throat he said, `Pay what you owe.' So, his fellow servant fell down and besought him, `Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' He refused and went and put him in prison till he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, 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 servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me; and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?' And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt. So also, my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart."
Reflection:
Today we remember
Saint John Chrysostom, whose preaching was so powerful that the people of
Constantinople gave him a name that has outlasted his own: Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed. He used that gift not to flatter the powerful but to confront them,
preaching relentlessly against the greed and excess of the wealthy elite of his
city while the poor at their gates went hungry. It cost him everything the
world could take; the Empress Eudoxia herself had him driven into exile, where
he died, worn down by the journey, still writing letters of comfort to the
flock he'd been torn away from. Sirach's words today could have been preached
from Chrysostom's own pulpit: forgive your neighbor's injustice, and when you
pray, your own sins will be pardoned; could anyone nourish anger against
another and expect healing from the Lord? Chrysostom knew both halves of that
sentence intimately; he confronted injustice without flinching, and yet history
remembers him not as a bitter man but as one whose final letters, written from
exile to those who had wronged him, carried no trace of the anger he had every
right to feel.
In today’s gospel
reading, it is put right in front of us, straight to the point. Peter asks how
many times he must forgive a brother who sins against him, seven times? And
Jesus answers not seven, but seventy-seven, and tells the parable of the
servant forgiven an enormous debt who then refuses to forgive a much smaller
one owed to him. Chrysostom preached that parable more than once to a
congregation that included some of the very people who would later demand his
exile, and when the moment came for him to either nurse his own justified anger
or let it go, the record shows a man who chose the harder, freer path. Paul's
words to the Romans today frame why: none of us lives for himself, and none of
us dies for himself; we are the Lord's, whether we live or die. Chrysostom
lived that verse to its very end, dying still belonging to Christ rather than
to his own grievance.
That should press
on whatever debt you're still keeping a private ledger on today, the wrong
someone did to you that you've decided you're entitled to hold onto, the
forgiveness you've been rationing out in small, grudging amounts. Chrysostom
lost his home, his church, and eventually his life to people who never fully
repented of what they'd done to him, and he still let it go. What debt are you
still collecting on, certain you have more right to hold it than he did?
There's a great pilgrim shrine at Mariazell, called Our Lady of Zell, built by a king in gratitude after twenty thousand men defeated an army four times their size, a monument to victories no one had expected. Chrysostom's own life ended in what looked, by every worldly measure, like defeat: exile, humiliation, an early death far from home. And yet his words are still read in every corner of the world he was driven out of, centuries after the empress who exiled him is remembered only for opposing him. Mary's shrines are full of impossible victories. Chrysostom's forgiveness, offered from exile to people who never asked for it, was one of the quietest and most impossible of all.
What debt are you still holding onto, certain you're entitled to hold it a little longer? Chrysostom forgave from exile, with nothing to gain. What would it cost you to finally close your own account today?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
Freely given. Freely
shared.
