These are the opening words of today’s Gospel, from St Matthew: ‘Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven”’.

St John Chrysostom commented: ‘What then says Christ, the good God, who is loving towards man? I say not unto you, until seven times, but, until seventy times seven, not setting a number here, but what is infinite and perpetual and forever. For even as ten thousand times signifies often, so here too. For by saying, The barren has borne seven, the Scripture means many. So that He has not limited the forgiveness by a number, but has declared that it is to be perpetual and forever’.

It is said that forgiveness is a process; all of us have issues to forgive and of which to be forgiven. Let us resolve to begin today, and may God bless you.