Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) — September 13, 2026: Forgiveness

Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) — September 13, 2026

The readings today press one of the hardest and most necessary demands of the Gospel: forgiveness that is not measured, grudges that must be released, and a life that no longer belongs to ourselves.

Sirach does not soften the language. Wrath and anger are “hateful things,” yet “the sinner hugs them tight.” The one who seeks vengeance will meet the Lord’s own accounting. The remedy is practical and immediate: forgive your neighbor the wrong done to you, and your own sins will be pardoned when you pray. Remember the commandments, remember the covenant, and overlook faults. Holding on to resentment is not strength; it is a form of self-imprisonment.

Psalm 103 answers with the character of God: “The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.” He does not treat us as our sins deserve. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our transgressions from us. The mercy we are commanded to show is first the mercy we have already received.

Paul then widens the horizon. “None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.” Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. Christ died and rose so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. Our lives are not private property. They are already claimed.

The Gospel parable makes the point unforgettable. Peter asks the reasonable question: How many times must I forgive? Seven times? Jesus answers with the unlimited number—“seventy-seven times” or “seventy times seven”—and then tells of the servant forgiven an unpayable debt who immediately throttles a fellow servant over a far smaller sum. The king’s judgment is severe: the unforgiving servant is handed over until he pays the last penny. “So will my heavenly Father do to you,” Jesus says, “unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”

Two days ago the nation marked another anniversary of September 11. We remember the sudden violence, the lives cut short, the families still carrying absence, and the first responders who ran toward the fire. Grief and the demand for justice are real. The readings do not ask us to pretend evil is not evil or that wounds do not ache. They do insist that clinging to wrath as a possession destroys the one who clings to it. The God who is slow to anger and rich in compassion still calls his people to live and die as those who belong to him, not as those who belong to their wounds.

Tomorrow the Church celebrates the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The bronze serpent lifted in the desert becomes the Son of Man lifted up so that whoever believes may have eternal life. The Cross is not an abstract symbol; it is the place where the unpayable debt was canceled, where mercy was poured out without measure, and where Christ emptied himself even to death. The same Lord who commands seventy-times-seven forgiveness is the one who first forgave from the Cross.

The invitation of this Sunday is therefore both personal and communal. Release the grudges you have been hugging tight. Live as one who already belongs to the Lord in life and in death. Look toward tomorrow’s feast and see in the lifted Cross the source of the mercy we are asked to extend. In a world still marked by violence and loss, the Church is called to be a people who remember the covenant, overlook faults, and forgive from the heart—not because it is easy, but because we have first been forgiven so completely.