Mtr Mary Trainor

“Not seven times but, I tell you, seventy-seven times…”

Dear friend,

My mother had a shoe box set up high on a closet shelf. It wasn’t full of secret things, as one might imagine. Rather, it was a little treasure trove of quotes and passages that she had clipped from newspapers and magazines. There also were originals, mostly poetry, crafted in late hours when the house was quiet.

I discovered the box when she sent me to retrieve something else from that high shelf. As I pushed and pulled things around, I must have bumped the treasure box because a slip of paper escaped, and wafted to the floor.

Forgiveness is the fragrance of the violet that lingers on the heel that crushed it.

No author was cited, but much later I would learn it is a slight variation of a Mark Twain saying.

In those years of my life, I hadn’t thought much about forgiveness. But the idea of a simple flower offering up sweet aroma in its final moments was pretty powerful. It made forgiveness something concrete, something I could almost understand.

“Not seven times but, I tell you, seventy-seven times…”

The Office Gospel for today (Matthew 18:22-35) is all about forgiveness. We encounter the memorable exchange between Peter and Jesus, the former looking for a rule. Have I done enough if I forgive a person seven times, Peter asks. No, Jesus says, do it seventy-seven times (sometimes offered as seventy times seven.)

If Peter was looking for a rule, I suspect he got more than he wanted. Seventy-seven times or four hundred ninety. Take your pick. It’s a lot to track.

It calls to mind a prisoner marking off days on the wall of his cell, each ‘x’ a step toward release. If it is a long sentence, the process must seem futile.

I suspect it feels futile, too, to track how many times you have forgiven each person for each infraction. Maybe that is Jesus’ point. Maybe forgiveness isn’t about keeping score.

Maybe it isn’t so much intended as a rule as maybe an invitation to look elsewhere for the answer.

And then Jesus tells a story of mercy and forgiveness. Actually, it is a story in two parts. In part one, mercy is shown and forgiveness granted. In part two, the man previously shown mercy and granted forgiveness fails to do the same.

“Not seven times but, I tell you, seventy-seven times…”

The topic of forgiveness often meets with resistance, sometimes from me. In my mind I have it all tied up with justice. But Jesus says unless I forgive from the heart, I may miss receiving the violet’s fragrance. Forgiveness isn’t about whether the offender pays, or is sorry, or changed, or even aware. Forgiveness is a grace that happens in me, and I am the better for it.

Forgiveness is the fragrance of the violet that lingers on the heel that crushed it.

Mtr. Mary