You will say to me, perhaps, "Father, I will forgive, but I cannot forget" If you say this to me I say to you: Take care. As long as you do not at least try to forget, as long as you keep in your mind that sore feeling which the injury you have received, or think you have received, has caused, it will always be an occasion of sin to you. It will always prompt you to withhold from the persons whom you blame that charity which you are bound to show to all. You will always be inclined to speak evil of them, to try to prevent others from praising them, to throw out some hint in which the venom which lies lurking in your heart comes up to the surface. And do not be too sure that you have really done all that God requires because the priest has given you absolution. He cannot read your heart, and often he is obliged to forgive uncharitable people like yourself, with great doubt in his mind whether his sentence is approved by the great Judge who cannot be deceived.
Now, that you may forgive more easily, remember what I suggested a little while ago: that is, that those who have offended you have generally done so either through selfishness or carelessness, not through malice. Believe me, real malice is quite a rare thing. If you could see the real dispositions of others you would see that on the whole they are about as good as your own; and I do not suppose you think you are malicious, and I do not believe you are. Put, then, those unworthy suspicions out of your minds, and forgive others freely and generously as you yourself wish to be forgiven.
Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
Epistle.
1 Thessalonians i. 2-10.
Brethren:
We give thanks to God always for you all: making a remembrance of you in our prayers without ceasing, being mindful of the work of your faith, and labor, and charity, and of the enduring of the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ before God and our Father; knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election: for our gospel hath not been to you in word only, but in power also, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much fulness, as you know what manner of men we have been among you for your sakes. And you became followers of us, and of the Lord: receiving the word in much tribulation, with joy of the Holy Ghost: so that you were made a pattern to all who believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you was spread abroad the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place, your faith which is towards God, is gone forth, so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves relate of us, what manner of entrance we had unto you; and how you were converted to God from idols, to serve the living and true God. And to wait for his Son from Heaven (whom he raised from the dead), Jesus who hath delivered us from the wrath to come.
Gospel.
St. Matthew xiii. 31-35.
At that time:
Jesus spoke to the multitude this parable: The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. Which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown up it is greater than any herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and dwell in the branches thereof.