I’ve been told that viewers of the Apple TV series Ted Lasso are continuously intrigued by - and even a bit envious of - the title character’s wonderful upbeat, positive disposition. His secret, he tells others, is to think like a goldfish, by which he means to have a short memory, I’m not sure that goldfish have a short memory, but I know that babies do. What he really is advising is to live with an abundance of forgiveness. To have a short memory by forging yourself, forgiving others, forgiving society, and forgiving the world. Just keep forgiving. This is the secret to happiness. In today’s Gospel, Jesus instructs us to forgive seventy-seven times, which is a number we understand as meaning endless and forever. Make forgiveness as much a part of you as your breath and your heartbeat. After all, as my once spiritual director taught me, you can never really hold a grudge; it holds you! Pope Francis always preached: “God is never-ending forgiveness; that’s who He is!” Why is it so hard for we humans to forgive? Often it is because we feel our pride is wounded. Better to have no pride, so there will be no wound! Many years ago, when I was doing my chaplaincy training in a psychiatric hospital, I remember the head chaplain telling us, his students, a story of how powerful the act of forgiveness is. He had visited a woman in-patient who lost her voice. She could not speak, and the doctors could find no medical reason for it. The psychiatrists and other doctors did test after test, but nothing helped her regain her voice. She interacted with a chaplain who spent a lot of time ministering to her. She would write her thoughts and feelings on a pad of paper. After many sessions with her, the wise chaplain began to suspect great guilt in her heart for the way she mistreated her sister. This happened for years. As the chaplain prayed for her forgiveness, one day his words hit a spiritual nerve in her soul. She burst out crying tears of great regret for how badly she had hurt her sister. But she was never able to say, ’I am sorry.” Once she allowed the deep guilt in her heart to surface, her voice began to return. At first, it was trembling, but then with time and prayer from the chaplain, her voice came back full force. She immediately contacted her sister, and they made amends to each other for the deep hurt each caused to the other. Where are you with forgiveness these days? How is lack of expressing it affecting your health?    

~ Fr. John