9/11 anniversary, justice, and the measure of forgiveness

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Sept. 11, 2011
Fr. Joseph Eddy
Gospel: Matt. 18:21-35 “Forgive your brother from your heart”

None of us will forget where we were ten years ago today, September 11^th 2001. I had just begun a life-changing journey. Leaving home for the first time, I had packed my bags and set off to follow my childhood dream.  September 8^th, the Feast of the Birth of Mary, I arrived in a small Western New York town to begin my formation in the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy. Excitement and fear filled my whole being as I said goodbye to my parents and my “old life.”

Fr. Joseph Eddy is the vocation director of the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy, founded to redeem Christians whose faith is in danger. The Order’s student house in the U.S. is in Philadelphia.

Is God calling you to become a Mercedarian friar? Visit Fr. Joseph’s Facebook page, or the website of the .

On the 3^rd day, I was just settling in when one of the brothers yelled for me and my new classmates to come to the community room. There I saw a sight which I will never forget! A hole in one of the Twin Towers. The brother explained that a plane had flown into the building leaving a gaping hole. I thought it must have been an accident, but then several minutes later we watched as the second plane flew directly into the building. Shock came over us as we realized this was no accident, but a planned attack.

Many of us have similar stories of shock and disbelief as our country experienced the first major attack on American soil in over a hundred years.  A whole country went through the mourning process of: shock, denial, guilt, anger, depression, and resignation. Those days will forever be etched in my memory. The daily count of the dead. The stories of the victims. The stories of heroism. And, yes the uncovering of the plot which had been planned for years to kill millions of people and cripple our economic system.

Anger can be a good

For at least a few months, we were united as a nation with the goal of seeking justice and protecting our country from further attacks. We were angry because a grave injustice had been done.  Anger can be just at times. And it seems to me that some degree of anger was just and necessary for us to experience, to progress through the mourning process. Anger is one of the passions or human emotions that are in themselves good so long as they are ordered properly. Our emotions must be ordered by a properly formed Intellect and directed by the Will to seek that which is good and true. So although our anger at the terrorists and the al Qaeda may have been just, there must be a reasonable limit to this. What is justice for all the lives that were lost? At what point do we turn from being the victims into the aggressors? It is very difficult to define what would constitute justice for the lives that were lost.

Anger and lack of forgiveness can be devastating to the human person. The first reading states that “wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.” Isn’t this the problem with anger, that we “hug… tight” the sins that others have committed against us? The person that can’t forgive is oppressed by his or her anger. This passion or emotion runs their life. God has not created us to live this way. We are given a mind (intellect) to order our Passions according to our faith. We also have free will to choose to let go of the wrongs that others have done to us.

Eye for an eye

Before Jesus came preaching the Gospel, the Jewish people followed the Old Testament adage “an eye for an eye.” Forgiveness was not something that was required of those who were devoted to the one true God. Jesus, though, came to fulfill the Old Law. He teaches us that the Father is truly “kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.”

In the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ we see that God is like that “king” in the parable who was “moved with compassion” and forgave the debt of our sins. Each of us can look at the Cross and be grateful for the compassion of God in taking away the Original Sin of our first parents. Yet, Christ has also taken upon himself the personal sins of each person. Sin by its nature leads to death. It is ugly and despicable to the God, who is love.  Each of our sins is a free choice against what is Beautiful, True, and Good. Serious sin separates us from communion with God and others. The weight of each person’s sin is too much for any of us to bear. We have each chosen separation from God by our sins. Yet, through the Church and her Sacraments, the “king” forgives our entire debt.

Strict justice over 9/11?

For us to turn and demand strict justice from others is very offensive to God. The Scripture today warns us all that we must not “hug” or cling to our wrath over the sins others have committed against us.  Often times we love our anger. We constantly feed this wrath by going over the sins committed against us in our minds over and over. As a nation maybe we have done this with 9/11. Each one of us as individuals does this with our own “pet” grudges that we hold against others.  This lack of forgiveness eats away at us. It can cause spiritual, psychological, and physical harm to us.

Forgiveness is not only suggested by Jesus, it is demanded. We must realize that we have been forgiven grievous sins against the very nature of the God who is love. We don’t deserve heaven or communion with God. It is a gift given to those who are purified by the blood of Christ. Heaven can be open to us. God wants to be merciful, but we MUST be merciful and forgiving to others. The measure of our forgiveness will determine the mercy that we receive (this is what the word of God tells us). God listens carefully to the prayers of the one who forgives. So much good comes from being able to “let go” of our grudges.

Treating our enemy with dignity

So on this memorial of a horrific event in our Nation’s history; let us remember that God is “kind and merciful.” We who are created in his Image must follow him in forgiving those who have wronged us and our Nation. We cannot tolerate the evil action, but the person must be treated with the dignity that they refused to show others. In this way, we follow our Savior who forgave those who murdered him and by this act opened the gates of paradise to all of us sinners.