24th Sunday Ordinary Time September 13, 2026

Readings: Sirach 27:30–28:9 | Romans 14:7-9 | Matthew 18:21-35

Only God can give us the grace to forgive all others, those who have harmed us in any way at all. God’s calls us to immediate and complete forgiveness of others. God is so clear in today’s readings: if you do not forgive, how can you possibly ask forgiveness? We know the story of the older brother within the story of the prodigal son. The older brother really resents his younger brother. The younger brother goes off and wastes all of his inheritance and then comes home and is received with incredible kindness and love by his father. This is truly injustice! And yet it is how God wants us to live: judge not and you will not be judged! How do I treat the person who harms me? Jesus gives us the story of the servant who could not pay his debt. None of us can repay our debt to the Lord. Should God then put us in prison and torture us? Instead, he forgives us our debts and asks us to forgive others.

All of us who have sinned can understand the debt that we owe to the Lord. The more we see that debt, the more we can understand that we must forgive others. The Book of Sirach spells out the teaching of today’s Gospel as well: If anyone who is flesh cherishes wrath, who can forgive his sins? In order to be forgiven, we must learn to forgive.

The Letter to the Romans also speaks of our debt to one another: None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. We can only truly live when we live for the Lord—and the Lord is always compassionate and merciful. Today, when we hear His voice, let us not harden our hearts. Instead, let us learn to forgive, even those things that seem unforgivable. It is God Himself inviting us to cleanse our souls and to forgive all who have harmed us in any way. Every time that we hold on to our anger, we damage only ourselves. Every time that we refuse forgiveness, we harm ourselves.

Let us live for God and live God’s forgiveness every day—from our hearts!