September 13, 2026
Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Sirach 27:30—28:7 | Romans 14:7-9 | Matthew 18:21-35
At the time of writing this reflection, the world was truly in a mess. The United States and Israel were bombing Iran; Israel continued to bomb Gaza and Lebanon; Russia continued its aggression against Ukraine; Sudan was embroiled in a destructive civil war; Pakistan and Afghanistan were fighting; areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo were witnessing continual fighting, and so many other places were experiencing violence, vengeance, genocide and anger. A U.N. report released at that time reported that there were 61 active conflicts in the world. At a U.N. side event at a conference in 2026, five examples of present active genocides were described and included the integral connection between genocide and ecocide. In Laudato Si’, Pope Francis emphasized integral ecology: the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. This U.N. side event demonstrated how our violence against people is so intimately related to our violence against their land. Add to this, the personal grudges, the angry political debates between siblings, and the refusal to even speak to one another within our families and communities. These are the very things that the author of Sirach is warning against in today’s first reading. “Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.”
Then, in the Gospel, Peter steps forward with a vengeful thought: “How often must I forgive a person who wrongs me?” As if there is a limit. But Jesus says: “not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” With these words, Jesus is taking his disciples and us back to the time of the original murders in the Bible: the unprovoked murder of Abel by Cain and the vengeful murder by Cain’s descendant Lamech of a young man who had wronged him. In Genesis 4, Lamech takes God’s promise of seven years of protection for Cain to prevent blood feuds and multiplies it by 11, boasting to his wives that his protection should be greater because he was acting against someone who struck him and wounded him first. Lamech uses God to rationalize the righteousness of vengeance, anger, war, violence and the spiral of blood feuds. He thinks he can do this with impunity just because he has the power to do it. Somewhat like the present U.S. administration’s actions against Venezuela and Iran.
The passage from Genesis illustrates the downward spiral of human violence and pride, separating humanity further from God and our sisters and brothers and all of creation. And for today’s Gospel, it serves as the Scriptural source for Jesus’s teachings on forgiveness in Matthew 18. Both Peter and Jesus have this Genesis passage in mind as they discern how to live in community. Peter references the seven years of protection for Cain, and Jesus flips Lamech’s idea of unlimited vengeance to unlimited forgiveness and nonviolence. It implies unlimited hope in and openness to the possibility of conversion and transformation both on a personal and global scale.
As Pope Leo wrote in Magnifica Humanitas, “Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the ‘just war’ theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated. Humanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy, and forgiveness. The use of force, violence, and weapons reflects a relational poverty that always has disastrous consequences for civilian populations.” (192)
Always remain open and hopeful to the possibility of transformation.
Maryknoll Father John Sivalon is a program associate at the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, where he works as Maryknoll NGO representative at the United Nations. He is a professor of religion at the University of Scranton and a returned Maryknoll missioner from Tanzania who has also served as the superior general of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.
To read other Scripture reflections published by the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, click here.
Featured image: Burundian volunteers prepare food for displaced families at Rugombo Stadium in Burundi, Feb. 18, 2025, after Congolese fled from renewed clashes between M23 rebels and the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (OSV News/Evrard Ngendakumana, Reuters)
