Daniel 3:25, 34-43 / Matthew 18:21-35
Whenever we say that we are busy, we may need to ask ourselves what are we really busy with.
Are we busy with the important things in life?
Or are we saying that we are busy as an excuse to avoid looking at the important things of life?
In the 1st reading, Azariah was busy with a prayer.
His prayer was for something important – he was praying for forgiveness for his people, as he says:
“may the contrite soul, the humbled spirit be acceptable to you”, “treat us gently, as you yourself are gentle and very merciful”.
So, Azariah was busy praying for forgiveness.
In the gospel, Peter was busy counting the number of times that one should forgive.
But Jesus tells him to forgive seventy-seven times, in other words, unlimited forgiving.
So, essentially in life there are two important things that we should be busy with:
We should be busy praying for forgiveness, and we should be busy forgiving others.