Our Marching Orders from God?

In the Gospel of Matthew (18: 15-20), Jesus tells us what to do when we are offended by a fellow human being. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother." Yet, as Catholics or more like as humans, we feel it is necessary to tell everyone under the sun about the vices of the one who has offended us. We start to hold grudges, hatred, and bitterness. So, how are we following Christ if we continue to hold negative energy against our brothers and sisters?

We forget that we need to seek forgiveness and repentance towards each other. Jesus continues to tell the disciples "that if their brother does not listen to them, then to treat them like the Gentiles and tax collectors." We are suppose to let it go and move on. How are we suppose to let go of the grudges and just move on? We feel like we need to judge them for the offense, but then again, we are playing God by judging them. Those grudges, hatred, and bitterness may continue for a few months, but we sometimes hold on to those offenses long after the person is gone.

Once the person is gone and we continue to hold all the negative energy, we now are forced to deal with the feeling of regret. A feeling that we wish we could see the person one last time. We wish the person would hear our apology. We wish the person would have accepted our apology. We do all this wishing because we have all this regret. Yet, we forget that God is the one who is in charge of our salvation. God is the one who makes the final determination. As Catholics, if one is not going to accept our forgiveness, then God tells us to move on. He gives us the marching orders of fixing the relationship face to face with the person. If the person is unwilling to meet or discuss the offense, then we are to bring others along to gather the facts. Yet, sometimes people just do not want to hear what we have to say, and, at that point, we move on.

Forgiveness is not about ourselves. It is about forgiving the person who caused the offense and moving on. Repentance is rebuilding the relationship with the other person and rebuilding the trust that was lost. We, as humans, are sometimes more tolerant of a mistake that a stranger makes than when our own family or friends makes that very same mistake. As it sounds hypocritical of God to tell us to just move on, God wants us to forgive the person and pray that one day they may come back to you wanting repentance. We need to focus on praying for the person instead of harboring harsh feelings.

By focusing on praying, not just for ourselves but for the other person, we are learning to forgive. We are not creating bad habits that would cause us to harbor all the bitterness and anger. While we harbor those negative feelings, we are not giving our hearts room to love God, as He is the all loving Father. Instead, we are fighting the demons of the vices that allow us to remain bitter and angry. It takes a lot to move on from the hurt and anger. However, what good is this hurt and anger truly doing for us? Besides, it could be hurting other relationships that we have.

Harboring the harsh feelings just continues to allow us to breed the hardening of the shell around our own hearts. We are less likely to help someone else because our hearts always go back to the feelings that the offender made us feel. Yet, we forget that it is only God who truly knows the whole story and as far fetched as it sounds, maybe, just maybe, God knows that we need to learn the lesson of moving on and letting go!