10 years ago this Sunday two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers killing thousands of people and changing the lives of so many more.  People working in the towers who survived the attack have lived with the knowledge that they were intended victims as well, meant to die that day.  They survived but they watched as friends, co-workers and family members died.

I was stricken by the incredible appropriateness of this Sunday’s readings.  I asked my husband, “No, really?  Would these readings have been the readings for this Sunday even if it wasn’t 9/11?” To which he replied, “I don’t think the Church chose those readings as appropriate for this Sunday, but God did!”  This week we enjoy one of the very rare readings from the book of Sirach!  It is an excerpt from a longer passage in which Sirach describes how deceit, mistrust, betrayal and suspicion can destroy friendship and cause lasting harm to friends.  

I invite you to experience forgiveness from the perspective of Paul Fox, who was working on the 50th floor of the South Tower on 9/11/01  9/11 Survivor Learning Forgiveness From Bin Laden.  After you listen to his interview, read all three of this Sunday’s readings 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time – USCCB and then meditate on those people or situations in which you have difficulty releasing your anger and hatred and transforming those emotions into compassion and intercession.  Do we have the right to expect forgiveness for our own sins if we are unwilling to forgive the sins of others in the same way?  Sirach asks, “Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the LORD?”  Before we ask forgiveness for ourselves we need to first forgive others.

“ ‘It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession’ (Catechism, 2843). Holy Spirit, give me such a heart!”

Do you ask yourself if it is really possible to forgive people from our hearts as Jesus urges us to do?  In the Catechism above we learn, “It is NOT in OUR power NOT to FEEL or to FORGET an OFFENSE;”  We cannot transform our hearts on our strength alone, we must ask Christ and the Holy Spirit for the strength to forgive!

The Psalm this week is The Lord is Kind and Merciful.  Click on #12124.  Lyrics are on the web page and also in the Spirit and Song hymnals at Holy Trinity.

Have a blessed week!