Daniel 3:25, 34-43 / Matthew 18:21-35
Experience comes from making mistakes and learning from them.
Or, it can also be said that mistakes increase our experience, and experience decrease our mistakes.
In life and in our relationships, whenever we make a mistake, we need to say sorry and ask for forgiveness.
When we say that we can’t forgive, we may be saying that we have not make any mistakes in life, which can’t be true.
But the time will come when we will be confronted with our own mistakes and we will have to say sorry.
In the 1st reading, the prayer of Azariah is also the prayer of the people of God as they acknowledge and admitted to their unfaithfulness and sinfulness.
They knew the experience of sin and now they ask for forgiveness.
But that should also lead them to know that when others do wrong, then they too should forgive others.
And as Jesus said to Peter in the gospel, forgive others, not just seven times, but even seventy-seven times.
To forgive others is to admit that we ourselves have done wrong and need forgiveness too.
And when we forgive others, then ourselves will also experience the joy and freedom of forgiveness.