Daily Gospel Reflection
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August 14, 2025
Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back,
his master ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property,
in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’
Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan.
When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants
who owed him a much smaller amount.
He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,
‘Pay back what you owe.’
Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
But he refused.
Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison
until he paid back the debt.
Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened,
they were deeply disturbed,
and went to their master and reported the whole affair.
His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant!
I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,
as I had pity on you?’
Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers
until he should pay back the whole debt.
So will my heavenly Father do to you,
unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.”
When Jesus finished these words, he left Galilee
and went to the district of Judea across the Jordan.
Reading today’s gospel brought me back to my days of being a competitive gymnast. Many times, I would go to my coach, thrilled that I had executed a difficult routine three times perfectly, and he would turn to me and say, “Congratulations!” He would continue, much to my dismay, by saying, “Now go do 10 more.”
In today’s gospel, Peter is probably thinking to himself, “Forgiving my brother seven times? That ought to be more than enough. Jesus will be so impressed.” And I imagine Jesus looking at him, slightly amused by his naïveté, patting him on the back, and saying, “Try more like seventy-seven times, but you’re on the right track, Peter.”
Doing something even moderately well often requires repetition, so being perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect, is going to take more than forgiving our neighbor a handful of times. Like gymnastics, being a Christian takes practice. It is a discipline. The ascetics, who entered the desert to abstain from worldly pleasures, understood this. The word asceticism comes from the Greek word for “training.” We, too, can be ascetics by being intentional in the exercise of forgiveness.
Perhaps right now it is difficult for us to forgive our neighbors for their “hundred-denarii faults”—the driver who cuts us off on our way to work, or the friend who repeatedly cancels coffee dates at the last minute. But if we train ourselves to let go of resentment and let God’s compassion take its place, perhaps eventually we, like the merciful king, will be able to forgive even our neighbor’s “ten-thousand-talents” debt with ease.
Prayer
Lord, please grant us the desire to want to learn how to forgive as you do. When we beg for forgiveness, you readily grant it. All is wiped clean, all is forgotten. We put our trust in your generosity. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Maximilian Kolbe was an outspoken Franciscan priest from Poland who was killed for opposing the Nazis.
He was born Raymund Kolbe in Poland, then part of the Russian empire, to a German father and Polish mother. Raymund had four brothers (though two passed away in early childhood), and shortly after his birth, his family moved to Pabiance, a city in central Poland.
When he was 12, Raymund received a vision of Mary while he was praying in front of an image of Our Lady of Czestochowa. She approached him with two crowns, one white and one red. “I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me,” he said. “She asked if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.”
He entered the seminary and became a Franciscan priest, taking the name Maximilian. He went on to higher studies at several universities in Europe and earned his doctoral degree in theology—in fact, his ideas about Mary found resonance in the later developments of the Second Vatican Council.
With some friends, he established an “army” for the Immaculate Heart of Mary—a group of people dedicated to conversion and devotion to Mary. He fell ill with tuberculosis, and never fully recovered—he spent the rest of his life in fragile health that would frequently interrupt his work.
He returned to Poland and began a flurry of evangelical activity, establishing a magazine and newspaper, which, at their peak, were publishing close to 1 million copies a day. He also founded a monastery and junior seminary.
He took some companions to evangelize Japan, even though they did not know the language and had no money. Within months, he was publishing 65,000 copies of his magazine in Japanese there and had founded a monastery in Nagasaki. The monastery survived the later nuclear bomb blast there, and continues to serve as a center for Franciscans in Japan.
His poor health forced him to return to Poland in 1936, and he helped his monastery establish a radio station. By 1939, the monastery in Poland held some 800 monks, the largest in the world at the time.
When the Nazis invaded Poland in the fall of 1939, Maximilian was arrested and detained for a time. After his release, his monastery’s media continued to publicly oppose the Nazis; they hid some 3,000 Polish refugees, most of whom were Jewish. The Nazis cracked down on the monastery, shut down the presses, dispersed the brothers, and imprisoned Maximilian.
In 1941, Maximilian was transferred to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, where he became prisoner 16670. His calm demeanor and faithfulness earned him beatings and the most difficult tasks. Once he was beaten and whipped so badly, he was left for dead. Prisoners snuck him into the camp hospital, and he spent his recovery hearing confessions.
In July of that year, some prisoners escaped the camp. In retribution, the Nazis selected ten men for execution for each man that escaped. One man who was selected for execution exclaimed, sobbing, that he had a wife and young children. Maximilian volunteered to take the man’s place.
Maximilian and nine other prisoners were sealed in a chamber without food or water. He survived on prayer for two weeks before he was executed by lethal injection on this day in 1941. The man he saved was present with his family at Maximilian’s canonization Mass 40 years later.
Because of the manner of his execution, St. Maximilian Kolbe is the patron saint of drug addicts; he is also patron of political prisoners, families, journalists, and the pro-life movement. His story and image are used by high school students who come to campus for a summer conference with the Notre Dame Vision program.
St. Maximilian Kolbe, you opposed the Nazis and gave your life that another prisoner could live—pray for us!
To learn even more about Saint Maximilian Kolbe, watch this video lecture from the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.
Image Credit: Our featured image of St. Maximilian Kolbe is an illustration by Julie Lonneman, who holds exclusive rights to the further distribution and publication of her art. Used with permission.