Crossing the rivers of fear and resentment is never easy. Yet today’s Scriptures invite precisely that step of trust, and the memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe shows what grace can do when a human heart dares to move first. The living God goes ahead of us; we place our feet into the flood, and the waters that once seemed inevitable begin to heap up into a bank (Jos 3:7–17; Ps 114:3).
When the River Heaps Up: Stepping into the Floods
Israel reaches the Jordan at flood stage. God instructs the priests bearing the ark to enter the waters, and only then does the river turn back, opening dry ground for the whole people (Jos 3:13–17). The Psalm marvels: “The sea beheld and fled; Jordan turned back” (Ps 114:3). The lesson is as bracing now as then: grace often appears after, not before, the first step of obedience.
Many know what a swollen Jordan feels like—anxiety about finances, a family estrangement that seems unbridgeable, a timeline filled with outrage, or wounds that re-open without warning. The Word’s pattern is clear: God’s presence goes first, and we follow. For Christians, the Ark that enters our floods is Christ Himself—and, in a luminous Marian key, the Ark of the New Covenant who bore Him (cf. Lk 1:43–45; 2 Sm 6). When we carry His presence into our waters—by prayer, sacrament, and courageous love—currents we cannot manage begin to yield.
“Let your countenance shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes” (Ps 119:135). That is the daily posture of those willing to put a foot into the river.
Mercy’s Logic and the Debts We Carry
Peter’s question reflects ordinary limits: “As many as seven times?” Jesus answers with a mercy that outstrips measure—“not seven times but seventy-seven times” (Mt 18:21–22). He then tells of an unpayable debt forgiven, and a forgiven debtor who refuses to forgive a neighbor’s small account (Mt 18:23–35). The story’s mathematics is moral: only those who remember mercy can extend mercy. And Jesus ends with a searching line: forgiveness must be “from the heart” (Mt 18:35).
This does not trivialize justice or healing. Forgiveness is not denial, excusing, or enabling harm. Boundaries, restitution, and due process matter. Yet the Gospel insists that the forgiven become forgiving—or else the hardness we keep for others colonizes our own heart. The debt we clutch begins to own us.
Mercy and Justice: Reason’s Ascent to Love
St. Thomas Aquinas helps modern minds see that mercy is not a soft alternative to justice but its perfection. “Mercy does not destroy justice, but is a certain kind of fulfillment of justice,” because God’s goodness heals what justice alone cannot repair (Summa Theologiae I, q.21, a.3). Aquinas also says that among the virtues that concern our neighbor, mercy is the greatest (II–II, q.30, a.4). In a world that prizes fairness, this is not irrational—it is super-rational: reason raised by grace to love as God loves.
So the Gospel’s “seventy-seven times” is not a sentimental arithmetic. It is the reversal of Lamech’s boast of limitless revenge (Gn 4:24). In Christ, the spiral of retaliation yields to a new logic: unlimited mercy that does not forget justice, but transfigures it.
The Incarnate Power to Forgive
St. Athanasius, defender of Christ’s full divinity, insists that only God can save. If the Crucified were not truly God, we would not be truly set free. “He became man that we might become God” (On the Incarnation 54.3). This is not poetry alone; it is the ontology of Christian forgiveness. When Jesus commands forgiveness “from the heart” (Mt 18:35), He gives what He commands: His own divine life poured into human hearts. The capacity to forgive beyond human limit is not our native equipment; it is the fruit of the Incarnation dwelling within us.
Seeds of the Word in a Wounded Culture
St. Justin Martyr taught that the Logos—the divine Word—has scattered “seeds” of truth through all peoples and philosophies. Forgiveness, then, is not an alien intrusion into human longing but its fulfillment. Even outside explicit faith, there is a dim intuition that mercy heals more deeply than payback. The Christian claim is that this intuition finds its source and consummation in Christ, the Logos made flesh. Practically, this means believers can meet a polarized culture without disdain, recognizing and watering any seed of goodness that aims at reconciliation, truth-telling, and repair.
Saint Maximilian Kolbe: A Marian Logic of Self-Gift
Today we remember St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe (1894–1941), Conventual Franciscan, evangelizer through media, founder of the Militia Immaculatae, missionary to Japan, and, in Auschwitz, a “martyr of charity.” When a prisoner was condemned to die, Kolbe stepped forward to take his place and endured starvation before receiving a lethal injection on August 14—the vigil of the Assumption. He lived and died by a simple conviction: only love creates.
Kolbe’s Marian devotion was not escapist piety. It was tactical discipleship. Entrusting everything to the Immaculate was his way of letting the Ark go first into every river—from the printing press to the death cell. His witness addresses today’s dilemmas: media that can inflame or illuminate; fear that shrinks the heart; systems that crush the vulnerable. He shows that a single act of self-gift can redraw the moral map for an entire camp. Mercy does not erase evil; it exposes and overcomes it.
Forgiveness in Practice: Boundaries, Healing, and Public Life
- Begin with receiving mercy. Regular confession and honest prayer allow the “unpayable debt” of one’s life to be felt and forgiven (Mt 18:26–27). Gratitude softens the will.
- Tell the truth about harm. Forgiveness grows in the light; name the wound to God, and where needed to a counselor, spiritual director, or trusted friend. Justice and safety are not opposed to mercy.
- Choose concrete acts. Pray daily for someone who has wronged you. Write a letter you may never send, surrendering the ledger to God. Make restitution where you owe it.
- Practice merciful justice publicly. In civic and workplace conflicts, advocate for accountability without humiliation. Aquinas’s insight safeguards both: mercy perfects; justice protects.
- Baptize your media habits. Kolbe used communications to build communion. Refuse to share contempt. Seek truth, resist simplification, and amplify voices of repair.
- Remember that healing can be gradual. Some reconciliations are not possible now. Forgiveness “from the heart” can coexist with prudent distance and ongoing legal or therapeutic processes.
Crossing Today’s Jordan
Israel’s crossing ends with the priests standing firm on dry ground “until the whole nation had completed the passage” (Jos 3:17). Christ, our true High Priest, stands in the riverbed for us all. Psalm 114 wonders at mountains that “skip like rams” and waters that retreat. The Gospel extends that wonder into the human heart: bitterness yields, debts are released, and new paths appear where none seemed possible.
On this memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the invitation is clear: let the Ark go first. Step into the water. Ask for a mercy that is wiser than vengeance and stronger than fear. And when the current tugs at your ankles, pray with the psalmist, “Let your countenance shine upon your servant and teach me your statutes” (Ps 119:135). The God who turned back Jordan still makes a way—often exactly where the flood runs deepest (Mt 18:21–35; Ps 114:3; Jos 3:13–17).