Lent - I've Never Been Good At Math

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."

Okay, I will  admit it, I've never been good at math.  It all started around 1960 or 1961 when my alma mater, St. Joseph and St. Anne School decided to teach it's inmates, I mean students, "The New Math."  Even today when I think about The New Math I shake my head and wonder why humans have a tendency to want to fix things that ain't broke.  Back then I was considered stupid by the good Sisters of Saint Joseph and the transition from arithmetic to The New Math seemed to prove them correct in their assumption. In first and second grades, after my father gave up trying to help his dope of a son and my mother took over trying to help me understand math.  She was able to make wonderful progress.  Through her tutelage  I was able to master the art of adding and subtracting which included the concept of borrowing. Then, without warning came The New Math and everything went to hell in a handbasket.  In the modern world given the same circumstances, I would be recognized as having a learning disability and modern techniques would be used to help me understand what to my mind was gibberish. Sister Emerita, if you are out there somewhere, none of my employers over the last forty-something years has asked me to subtract two negative numbers, just saying.  Today I can add, subtract, multiply, and divide with the rest of humanity.  

In today's Gospel, we are told to forgive our brother seventy-seven times. That is a number I can wrap my hands around.  On a number line, it is seventy-seven places to the right of zero, it is not a prime number, it is odd, and only twenty-three places on the number line from one-hundred.  But, Jesus is not giving us a math lesson here. He is giving us a life lesson.  Peter is being generous and asks if he should forgive a person seven times.  That was a lot back then where the law was still an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  Peter may have been trying to score some points with Jesus by appearing generous.  Jesus wasn't having any of it.  I can imagine Him turning to Peter and saying ""I say to you, not seven times 

but seventy-seven times." 

The number seven, of course, is "God's Number" it is a number of the day that God rested from His work of creation when He saw that all of what He made was very good.  What Jesus is telling us to do, is to forgive an infinite amount of times. We are to strive to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.  We are to forgive as many times as the Father forgives us.  We can throw sand in the face of God every day of our life and repent just before we die and be forgiven. There is no circumstance in life that precludes forgiveness.  I know, I know, it is hard to forgive what he did, what she said, what they did.  We are called to forgive and to bring ourselves the peace that forgiveness of those who offend us will bring here on earth.  It is not easy to be a Christian.  It is not easy to forgive.  But we must imitate Christ who, from the cross, said, "Father forgive them, they know not what they are doing."   If Jesus can do that from the Cross, can we not do it as well as safe on the ground, eating an apple, we watch Him die?