Father Mark Nolte - Sept 13

St. Philip Catholic Church: Good morning, everybody. Probably one of the most difficult things in our life as Christians, Catholics, is forgiving people who've hurt us. If you've lived long enough on earth, you've been hurt a few times. We've all been hurt. And some of us more deeply than others perhaps. And yet Jesus today calls us to forgiveness. Jesus says in the Gospels, Love your enemies, pray for those who mistreat you. He asks us to do something that does not come natural for us. Our natural response to injury is revenge. You're gonna pay for this. How many of us said that, or at least thought that you're gonna pay for this? And we give our spouse the silent treatment for two weeks. Any of y'all ever done that before? Raise your hands, get up, come on. Silent treatment, yeah that's one way we hold on to that anger. I'm gonna give my husband or my wife the silent treatment. Or our kids are maybe a kids are angry at our parents and they start doing this. You ever seen this one? Silent treatment. And then we go into rebellion and it leads to all kinds of things. There's a reason why anger, I should say the sin of anger, because the emotion of anger is just it's a healthy emotion. We need it to respond to injustice. But the sin of anger is one of the seven deadly sins. Why is it deadly? Because when we harbor anger in our hearts, it will harden our hearts. It will actually make your body sick. And I can tell you numerous cases in healing ministry of people's bodies that were full of sickness, cancer, body aches and pains, headaches, migraines, you name it. Stiff-necked. There's a reason why in the Old Testament God calls his people you stiff-necked people. That's my pride. We become hardened by anger. We were praying over this guy one time and He had arthritis all through his body. He he was full of pain. He looked about thirty years older th than he was. And he came into this healing conference and we prayed over him. And I remember when he first came in, he had his cane and he was like And he looked miserable. We sat him down, we prayed with him, and one of the ladies in the group said, Is there somebody you need to forgive? And he went, Yeah. Who is it? He said, My ex-wife, who left me and my children 15 years ago without a note, no nothing. She just left. We haven't seen her since. He said, I've hated her ever since. And this woman said, That hatred is destroying you. Are you ready to let go of the hatred and forgive your ex wife? And he said yes, that's why he was there. He he carried it for fifteen years. I think he learned his lesson that it's not doing him any good. Anger, the the sin of anger, is destructive. Like all the deadly sins, it will destroy your peace, it will destroy your joy, it will keep you up at night, and it will cause tremendous pain all through your body. I really believe a lot of illnesses today in the body are due to unconfessed sins. Not all of it, but a lot of them are. I know for myself, I used to have a lot of lower back issues that are almost completely gone now. And that had to do a lot with a lot of anger I was dealing with a lot many years ago. So we we asked this gentleman to forgive his wife, and right there we led him through a little prayer. He forgave his wife, and right in front of us, God healed him. I was in my twenties. This is one of the first time I saw this, and I was just like, I was kind of he was just like. You know, making all these sounds. I'm like, what's what's going on? And you can hear all the joints in his body, like somebody cracking their knuckles. He just started, and I realized, you know, looking back, God was healing him. Because he was willing to let go of the anger and forgive his ex-wife. And he just cried his eyes out, and this lady just held him and let him cry and cry and cry. All think about all those years of pain, he just was getting it all out. All the tears were coming out. Later on that day at the conference we saw him at lunch and I said, Hey, where's Jim? That was his name, I believe. I said, Where's Jim? Did he leave? They said, No, he's sitting right over there. I looked over there and went, That's not Jim. He goes, That is Jim. He looked 30 years younger. He was no cane, he was sitting up, he had a big smile on his face. His face of his countenance changed, and he was over there just laughing and joking around. All because he chose to forgive. Another lady with fibromyalgia couldn't sleep at night. Her body's covered in tattoos, all kinds of satanic stuff. She was full of hatred and anger because of what her father did to her. And I won't go into that. And I told her you gotta let go of it. I know that's hard. What he did to you was horrendous. But you're miserable. And you're still giving your dad power over you by hanging on to the anger. He's already dead. He's under he's he's buried. Can you forgive? And she wouldn't. She refused to. I said, You're gonna you're gonna suffer. There's consequences when we hang on and we harbor anger and bitterness and hatred, it will destroy you. That's why Jesus calls us today to forgive one another as he's forgiven us. He's paid, Jesus has paid the price. He's forgiven us for our sins. This is why he came and suffered and died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins. And that what we do this at every Mass. We come to Mass, we say, Lord, have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord, what we're saying is, Jesus, Father, forgive me. I messed up this week. And he extends that mercy to you. And then he calls us at the end of every mass, he sends us out. He says, Go, the masses in it proclaim the good news in one in other words, be my ambassadors of mercy. Be my ambassadors of mercy to the world, to those who've hurt you. And it usually starts in our homes with our spouses, our children, our parents. Co workers. Some of you here today you're in a lot of pain. You're you're you're you're hurting. You've been hurt and maybe some of you here today you're hurting somebody's hurting you on a regular basis. Maybe they're rejecting you. They're not valuing you. They don't give you the time of day, whatever it is, or they said hateful things to you. Some of you here today are full of anger. Some kids here today you might be full of anger. Because you're hurting. And that's what always helps me forgive the people who have hurt me. You ever heard of the saying, hurt people, hurt people? How raise your hand if you've ever heard of that? Hurt people, hurt people. Well, healed people, healed people. Hurt people, hurt people. So when somebody hurts me, once I get over all my pride and anger and work through it a little bit with with the Lord, he'll tell me, I want you to forgive him and I want you to pray for him because he's hurting. He's acting out of his own pain. Toward you. Next to the Eucharist, my favorite sacrament is the sacrament of confession. I love hearing confessions. Well, not all of but some of them you're like Just kidding. That's what I like about being behind a box here, because you can't see when we're taking a nap. So if you ever hear the priests go, What did you say again? We just nodded off. Just kidding. But I love hearing face-to-face confessions, you know, because I get to watch God's transforming power right in front of me. So when I see somebody face to face, I get to watch their countenance change, their body language change. I get to watch them get out of that chair and walk out with this weight lifted off of them. And just watch God do his thing. See, God loves us. The Father is a God, He is the Father of compassion. In in in the Psalms today, it says God is a Is full of compassion. He's slow to anger and rich in mercy. That's your father. That's who your father is. He's a loving father. He's full of compassion, full of mercy. I was talking to a young man the other day. And he's like, Do you think God will forgive me for this, this, and this? I said, Absolutely, just ask him for forgiveness. But you gotta forgive yourself. A lot of times I see. Catholics they go to confession, they're forgiven, then they walk out of the confessional like this. Like you just got for you were just forgiven. Lift up your head, rejoice. Because in heaven, all the angels and saints in heaven rejoice at every repentant sinner, heaven has throwing a party. Did you know that? Do you know heaven's throwing a big party right now? Because they see all of you here today, and you're asking him, Have mercy on me, have mercy, forgive me. All heaven rejoices, the Father rejoices over his children. When he sees them and come to him and to ask for his mercy. The hard part now is you gotta go out there and extend that mercy to somebody who's hurt you. Love your enemies, pray for those who mistreat you. So what happens when we get hurt? We we naturally respond with anger and we should. I'd worry about you if did if you didn't feel a little angry when you got hurt. But don't harbor the anger. Don't don't nurture that anger. Give it to the Lord. Lord, I am so ticked off right now. I wanna just but I give you this anger, Lord. That's what forgiveness is. It just means I'm releasing my anger to him. Forgiveness does not mean I condone what you just did to me. That's not what it means. And forgiveness is the act of the will. It's not a feeling. If you're waiting to feel it, you're not. I don't, when people hurt me, you know, I can think of a whole list of people. And I've and I've hurt people too. I'm guilty. But when I think of those individuals I look back on those situations, I had to work at it for a while, but eventually God gave me his heart toward them and enabled me to forgive them. And not only forgive them but to actually love them with his love. And to realize they're hurting too. And God wants to heal the hurt. So what can you do? What here's some tips. So when you get hurt, acknowledge it. Bring it to the Lord. Lord, I'm so angry. I'm so angry. I cannot stand this person. But Lord, I choose. It's a choice. I choose right now to forgive him or her for hurting me. Remember what Jesus said from the cross? He said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. That's a great prayer to pray for somebody who you're struggling with, and maybe they're hurting you. And you just keep praying. Father, I forgive them for they know not what they do. And Father, forgive me for judging them and for harboring anger toward them. Here's another great tip, Father. I give you all the pain in my heart that they're inflicting upon me. Every mass we come to offer our sacrifice. We come to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. We come to offer on this altar all the pain and suffering that you're carrying in your hearts, especially from those who've hurt you. Life is too short. This time on earth is a tiny speck compared to all eternity. The Bible says, Scripture says, Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Don't go to bed angry. Forgive one Jesus says forgive one another as I've forgiven you. If it's somebody you live with or work with, just go up to them and say, I'm sorry, will you forgive me? I'm sorry for being a jerk. That goes a long way just saying, I'm sorry, will you forgive me? And then offer that suffering to him. See what happens when you choose to forgive, like those two individuals, when you choose to forgive somebody, now God can heal the pain in your heart. See, unforgiveness is like a wall. When we we choose to hang on to unforgiveness, you're just putting a wall up between you and God, and you and everybody else, and that's a lonely place. And we just sit there and we sulk in that pain. And God, the Father, wants to heal that pain. And the way he's going to do it, he needs you to forgive them. He needs you to forgive yourselves for your past sins. I hear this a lot from Catholics. They're still beating themselves up for stuff they did 50 years ago, and they've already brought it to confession. Stop it. Stop it. That's your pride. That's your own that's not coming from the Father. That's not how He is towards you. You see, the more you and I spend time with with the Lord in prayer and we get to know the Father through Jesus, the more we come to know the Father is a loving, sweet, compassionate, gentle, merciful Father. The more we get to know him, it becomes a little easier to forgive other people because I know I've been forgiven. I'm not saying it's easy, it's really hard. Because I have to humble myself, that's why forgiveness is so hard, because that pride in me it does not want to let go of the anger. But I have to choose to crucify the pride in me, to put it to death, to put to death this deadly sin of pride and anger. And choose, Lord, I just forgive. So who is it today? Ask the Holy Spirit who is it I need to forgive today? It might be one person, might be a whole list of people, it may not be anybody. Maybe you're fine. That's okay. But ask him, Who is it? I need to forgive, Lord. Give me the grace, that supernatural grace, to forgive these individuals. And Father, I lift them up to you and I ask that you heal their pain. And Father, I also unite with you all the pain in my heart that these individuals have inflicted upon me. I unite it with you, Jesus, and I offer it up for them. And if we just practice those little things, God's going to heal your heart and set you free.