We are not all “finished products.” We are all works in progress—growing, healing, and learning to become more mature in our relationships with God and with one another.
Each of us carries a “shadow”—those wounded, hidden, or less-developed parts of ourselves that can sometimes surface as anger, selfishness, envy, resentment, or fear. Some carry heavier burdens and more painful stories than others. We are simply not all at the same place in our emotional, spiritual, or human journey.
Perhaps this is why Jesus calls us to compassion rather than quick judgment.
In Matthew 18:21–22, Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus answers, “Not seven times but seventy times seven.”
Jesus is not asking us to keep counting. He is asking us to stop counting.
Forgiveness is not about keeping a record of how many times someone has hurt us. It is about cultivating a heart that remains open to mercy.
Jesus illustrates this with the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant. A servant whose enormous debt has been forgiven refuses to forgive the much smaller debt of another. The tragedy is that he received mercy but could not extend mercy.
How easily this can happen to us.
We ask God to forgive our failures, weaknesses, and sins, yet sometimes struggle to forgive the person who has hurt us. We can become very religious and still become judgmental. We can know the language of faith while forgetting the heart of the Gospel.
Compassion does not mean excusing wrongdoing. We can hold people accountable, establish boundaries, seek justice, and still refuse to hate them. Forgiveness does not erase accountability; it frees the heart from vengeance.
Sometimes forgiveness is a process. We may have to forgive the same person, the same wound, or even ourselves more than once. We may never forget what happened, but with God’s grace, the wound no longer has to control our hearts.
Pope Francis beautifully reminds us that “compassion allows you to see reality” and is “the lens of the heart.”
Without compassion, we see only the offense.
With compassion, we begin to see the person.
May we become people who remember that we, too, are unfinished; that we, too, have needed mercy; and that we, too, live by God’s forgiveness.
And may the mercy we have received from God never stop with us.
May it flow through us to others—seventy times seven.
Sending warm blessings to all!
With love,
Fr. Rodel “Odey” Balagtas
