Good morning and wish you a splendid Sunday!
(Mt 18, 21-35)
Peter with his usual impetuosity and popular frankness wants to go overboard and declare that he is generous in forgiving not only four times (which was the Rabbinical teaching) but he adds three more to it. Probably, he refers to an incurable recidivist = a person who repeatedly commits crime and is not discouraged by being punished. Literally this is a hard-hearted person.
When Jesus says seventy times seven,
He has in mind what happened in Genesis (4, 23-24) where Lamech sings a savage song which echoes the primitive tribal hatred: "If Cain is avenged sevenfold, Lamech seventy fold." In fact,
God is infinite in His mercy He forgives our enormous debt. The sum of evil accumulated in this world is beyond reckoning. God moved with compassion forgives our entire debt. We cannot bring arguments from sociology or from any code of ethics. Mutual forgiveness is founded on the fact that we are the beneficiaries of God's forgiveness.
With this criterion, can l have compassion and magnanimously forgive my repeatedly erring brother?
@SocMen 17/IX/2023

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