In today's Gospel Peter asks Jesus this question: "...if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?" (Mt 18: 21-35) Jesus response is: "(n)ot seven times, but seventy-seven times." Jesus continues His response with the comparison of the Kingdom of heaven to a king who settles accounts, and starts off by forgiving the debt of a servant who cannot pay. That servant, however, goes to another servant who owes him a debt and demands payment himself. When the king hears of the story of the forgiven servant who does not himself forgive, the king throws the unforgiving servant in prison to be tortured. Jesus ends the analogy by saying that we must "each forgive (our) brother from (our) heart" if we want to be forgiven by God. So what does Jesus mean by forgiving "from the heart"? Well, I'm pretty sure it is not about counting the number of times one forgives. That's why Jesus answers as He does-- who's going to count to 77 times anyway. Are we going to go around with a sheet of paper, or a cell phone app, to keep the record of the "forgiveness"? Will we say to our brother: "OK, I have forgiven you 58 times. You have 19 more left"? Obviously not. The question of "how many" is itself the wrong question. If we're keeping track of the number of times-- whether it is 7 or 77-- we are still holding the sin of our brother over our brother's head. Perhaps we have forgiven with our mouth, but we're still holding the sin against our brother. We have weaponized the sin against him. The sin is still in our heart. No, what Jesus means with the reference to "77 times" is that we should forgive in such a way that we couldn't keep track of the number of times we have forgiven even if we wanted to do that. Why? Because we have forgotten the forgiveness. It is gone from our mind and, most importantly, from our heart. We don't hold whatever happened against our brother. The "sin" is gone. I have family members who are still grumpy with relatives over the fact that a thank you note wasn't sent, or a Christmas card got misaddressed, many years ago. Sure they say they have forgiven, but the fact that they are still grumpy has poisoned the relationship. Recognizing that there are bumps in the road in any relationship, think about some of the relationships you have had the longest and ask yourself this question: "Can I recall anything that the person with whom I have the relationship did that was wrong, that bothered me, that still makes me upset?" If the answer is "no." you're forgiving from the heart. If the answer is "yes," perhaps you have a problem remembering to forget.