USS Galileo :: Sermon: Forgiveness
Previous Next

Sermon: Forgiveness

Posted on 01 Sep 2024 @ 12:38pm by Lieutenant JG Hovar Kov

1,715 words; about a 9 minute read

[ON]

After kissing the Gospel after reciting it, Hovar placed the Missal on the center of the alter next to the Corporal, placing his maniple on the alter yet again. Taking a deep breath, Hovar grabbed his PADD and proceeded to the communion rail to deliver his sermon, but this time he had two PADDs. One was to record his sermon, and the other that he was going to read from. Placing the smaller one on the rail, Hovar started his sermon,

"Friends,

Just one announcement for today: Mass intentions signups will be offered at no charge. Mass intentions, to make it brief, enable me to offer a Mass in the name of some else. It is akin, in the Klingon tradition, to fight in a battle in the name of someone else to ensure that their honor in the afterlife is restored. The person does not have to be deceased or even have anything wrong with them. All you need to do is to send me a message and I will dedicate a Mass to them on a given Sunday."

Hovar took a breath as he looked down at the larger PADD, which contained the verses that he wanted to speak of today.

"For if you will forgive men their offences, your heavenly Father will forgive you also your offences. But if you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you your offences."

Hovar then placed the larger PADD down on the rail next to the smaller PADD.

"Those words were spoken at the Sermon of the Mount that Matthew recorded. This was after Jesus of Nazareth spoke of the Our Father prayer, which has the following phrase: "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." When Jesus of Nazareth hung on the cross, he begged God to forgive those who wanted his death, who nailed him to the cross, and who mocked him, "for they know not what they do." When the penitent thief asked Jesus of Nazareth to forgive him and to put in a good word for him while he too was on his own cross, "Today you will be with me in paradise" was the response.

How many of us would do the same? How many of us would have the bravery to forgive someone? How many of us would look at those who wronged us and willingly forgive them? How many of us would look at our superior officers, who we feel have wronged us somehow, and forgive them? How many of us would look at those under our command and forgive them of their actions? How many of us would dare say the words, "I forgive you"?

If I were to guess, I would say next to no one.

Why is that? For most of us, we grew up in an eye-for-an-eye mentality. If a Klingon slapped me in the face with his bare hand, there is only one response: a fight to the death. There are no other options. If someone killed my family, I would not stop until I wipe out their entire blood line. If someone offended me, I would demand an apology or I would take my blade and take it from them. It would not matter to me who caused offense; they offend me, I demand justice."

Hovar paused as he grinned ever so slightly,

"Please do not look at me thinking that you do not share my Klingon mentality. If you do think that, I would like you to come to Confession for the sins of pride and vanity. There are three causes of conflict more or less without cynicism: to keep something, to gain something, or to recover something. For example, the Dominion sought to gain the Alpha Quadrant, the Federation sought to keep what they had and recover what they lost. I will go into more detail on a later date, but I mention this to bring to present what I'd a more emotional scale.

Say Counselor Carlisle feels like I do not look at her as my superior officer. Naturally, she would feel upset. Her only recourse would be to engage in some kind of conflict to recover her place as my superior officer. It could be something as simple as having a sit down and discussing what we would do as counselors. It could be something as drastic as engaging me in hand-to-hand combat and giving me the business."

There were some in the crowd who chuckled at the thought of the Chief Counselor taking down a Klingon Warrior.

"Do not take her for granted my friends! She scares me more than the Captain does."

The comedic relief was received well apparently, and Hovar continued with the comedic talk.

"What are the odds of her telling me, "I forgive you"? What are the odds of her looking at me as if I were the Prodigal Son and she was my mother to welcome me into her arms? Would she let everything go on a spiritual level and relieve that debt? I do not know. I hope she will! She is an honorable officer, and I look to her with all of the respect that is owed not to her rank, but to her as a person.

I am not saying that she will forget what happened, the forgiveness I speak of is not a forgive-and-forget type of deal. Forgiveness is eliminating the sinful debt against someone. It is no longer holding in the anger or the wrath. It is no longer letting that debt grow and grow and grow inside of you until all you know is anger and wrath. You no longer care what happens. You become cold, hard, imperious, and never letting even the tiniest of trespasses go. It erodes your soul to the point to where that is all you think about. All you want is to seek perpetual justice, and you take it upon yourself to judge others even if they had nothing to do with what wronged you. You condemn the children of the sins of the father. Worse still, you condemn the stranger of the sins of other strangers merely because they share the same ancestor. Whatever was wronged to you, and whoever wronged you, is taken out on others."

The priest knew what he was about to say next was going to rub people the wrong way as he raised voice a little bit:

"In hatred you sustain your anger as a twisted form of piety! As William Shakespeare said,

“We are oft to blame in this, 'tis too much proved, that with devotion's visage, and pious action, we do sugar o'er the devil himself.”

To paraphrase what our blessed Lord said to the Pharisees and Scribes, who were sticklers to the letters of the law and not the spirit of the law: woe to you who not only holds onto your hated like a narcotic, but spreads that hatred to your future generations and to others! You hypocrite!"

Hovar thought about when he wanted to hold on to his hatred for his own family being forced, by his hand, to excommunicate him.

"You claim that you are a vessel of love and charity, of duty and honor, yet you will become twice the child of hell than those who conceived your hardened heart in the first place!"

After that animated display, Hovar took some deep breaths. Obviously, this was something that their chaplain was passionate about. After gaining himself, Hovar grabbed the larger PADD, and he carefully scrolled down to the story.

"I would like to share a story with all of you. In the 21st century, there was a pandemic called COVID-19 that acted like a plague. Before the pandemic started, a husband and a wife were friends with a girlfriend and boyfriend who the wife looked upon them as her brother and her sister. Their relationship, however, did not sit well with the husband. The boyfriend did not treat his girlfriend nor the wife well, and it only took one time, and the husband decided that he would never forgive the boyfriend, even though his wife and the girlfriend forgave him. However, the boyfriend got sick with COVID-19, and the Husband could not bring himself to forgive him, even after his wife begged him. By the time he brought himself to forgive the boyfriend, he found out that the boyfriend died. This was the first time he kept his heart hardened, like the Pharaoh of Exodus, to the grave. It plagued the husband's mind for the rest of his life, being a constant regret. That was the one sin he could not forgive himself for."

Hovar gave a pause as he crossed himself in honor of the life that was lost.

"All of us, at some point, needs to find forgiveness not only within ourselves, but to share that forgiveness to others. Hatred is the ultimate conman who will twist your minds to believe this con. Hatred will be all that you know, and any sense of love that you feel will only be a cruel con to yourself. It does not matter how it is done or how long it will take, find it within your heart to forgive. Let that burden within your heart be released so that your hatred will not overwhelm you."

Hovar then knelt down, on his knees, and bowed to the congregation, casting his eyes to the floor in complete humility. No doubt, a Klingon in such a manner would have been unexpected.

"I ask that you all will have mercy on me, to forgive my sins against you, and to grant me pardon, absolution, and remission."

Hovar remained bowed for a moment longer before he motioned to stand back up again. He still cast his eyes down as he stopped the recording and grasped both PADDs. Placing them on the alter, he put his maniple back on his left arm. He stood with his hands together, in front of his chest, as he took a deep breath and hoped that this was a good sermon. When he felt the confidence again, he opened his hands to make a giant circle as he looked up to the crucifix momentarily as he continued with the Mass.

[OFF]

 

Previous Next

labels_subscribe RSS Feed