Page 2

your Father forgive your trespasses."

(Mat 6:14-15)

What a terrible responsibility the priest has! He must disassociate himself from his
personal views and feelings. To those that wrong him, he shares with all men the
responsibility to forgive all times. Only in the case of when he is acting as God's priest,
and in his judgment he feels a person is not repentant concerning his sins, may he
withhold forgiveness.

Regarding the strange number "seventy times seven", Blessed Augustine has an
interesting comment:

"Yet not without reason did the Lord say, �-�Seventy times seven;�-? for the
Law is set forth in ten precepts; and the Law is signified by the number
ten, sin by eleven, because it is passing the denary line. Seven is used to be
put for a whole, because time goes round in seven days. Take eleven seven
times, and you have seventy. He would therefore have all trespasses
forgiven, for this is what He signifies by the number seventy-seven."

(Catena Aurea - Gospel of Matthew, Chap 18 - http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/catena1.ii.xviii.html)

So the number "77" indicates not only that we must forgive always, but that we must
forgive ALL SINS ALWAYS.

Some of the Fathers interpret the number as 70 * 7 = 490. The actual number is not
important, but its meaning is - it is an arbitrarily large number.

"What then saith Christ, the good God, who is loving towards man? �-�I say
not unto thee, until seven times, but, until seventy times seven,�-? not setting
a number here, but what is infinite and perpetual and forever. For even as
ten thousand times signifies 358 often, so here too. For by saying, �-?The
barren hath borne seven,�-? So that He hath not limited the forgiveness by a
number, but hath declared that it is to be perpetual and forever."

(St John

Chrysostom, Homily LXI., Matt. XVIII. 2, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf110.iii.LVIII.html - the
scripture quotation is from 1 Sam. ii. 5.)

There are other instances in the scriptures when an arbitrary number is used to indicate a
limitless number:

"If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and

sevenfold."(

Gen 4:24 )

Of course, my parish should be aware of another famous large number (if you listen to
my homilies):

"Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an
hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not