SEPTEMBER 17, 2017
7:30 AM, 6:00 PM (SONOMA STATE) ORDINARY FORM (ENGLISH) MASSES
Born Jean François Gravelet in France in early 1824, he used the stage name “Blondin” – sometimes Charles Blondin, sometimes Jean François Blondin … sometimes Chevalier Blondin or even just the Great Blondin.
As a child, he trained as an acrobat, and is perhaps most well-known for his repeated crossings of the Niagara Gorge on the US-Canada border … on a tight rope … while pushing a wheel barrow.
In one performance, he addressed the crowd … asking if they believed he could do it. They roared back in affirmative reply. When he asked if anyone would get into the wheel barrow … they were silently reserved.
Blondin was so famous that in the mid 19th century, the term “Blondin” came to mean a skilled tightrope walker. President Abraham Lincoln once compared himself to Blondin, pushing “all that was valuable to America in [a] wheelbarrow”.
Today is the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time.
Our readings focus on forgiveness.
Forgiveness is one of those things that everybody wants to receive, but nobody wants to give. We are enthusiastic about being given forgiveness, sometimes even begging for it. But are perhaps dreadfully silent when we have been deeply hurt by someone.
Just like Blondin’s stunt with the wheelbarrow – everyone was OK if he did it, but nobody wanted to join him.
Even in today’s Gospel, St. Peter hopes for some limits to forgiveness … setting the upper boundary at 7. Jesus boosts it to 77 times … by this is hyperbole, not arithmetic. Elsewhere in Scripture this is recorded as 70 times 7 or even 70 times 70. It is meant as a number that we will lose track of – becoming “infinity.” It most certainly is not meant as a tally we should seek to record and enforce.
Perhaps we say it too often, in the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Yet, in this statement, we are making a contractual agreement – a covenental pledge – to give as good as we get … to forgive as abundantly as we have been forgiven.
God’s forgiveness is not limited by anything on His side. Nor is His love or His mercy. Yet our own unwillingness to forgive can damage our relationships not only with others, but with God.
Expressing forgiveness with the generosity of God can sometimes feel like riding in a wheelbarrow over a gorge while balancing on a tightrope. It isn’t easy, nor are many comforatable with doing it. But this is our Christian duty as adopted children of the Most High God. We are called to be God-like, and to live a life of divine generosity.
As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, let us pray for the generosity of heart to forgive as God forgives. May we let go of any past hurts and grudges and reach out in love to those who have hurt us.
Through the grace of the Eucharist we receive today, may we fulfill that pledge to forgive as we have been forgiven.
