Daily Gospel Reflection for August 13, 2025

Join us as we reflect, ponder, and pray together inspired by today's Gospel.

Today's Gospel: Matthew 18:15-20

Our children act as we do and will react to life’s events as they have seen us act. The hardest lesson a parent teaches their child is taught not with words but actions.

Jesus knew all too well how we act in various situations when we are hurt, which is why in today’s Gospel, He exhorts us to try making peace, to forgive. He gives us the steps to do so.

First, quietly go to the person and try to work it out. If it still festers, take it to other family members for help creating peace. Even go so far as involving an outsider to settle the dispute. 

Those are the actions we need our children to see, to model. Sadly though, efforts to make peace will sometimes be rebuffed. These are the times we need to prepare our children to face.  

Show them how you walk away and forgive no matter what. Children will experience other children who don’t like them, tease them, or won’t want to play with them. Showing them how to forgive and walk away is one of the hardest lessons a parent has. It is hard because we feel their pain, oftentimes more intensely than they do! But first and foremost, we need to tell them and show them forgiveness is the right action. Forgiving others, even if they never know or care they are forgiven, enriches the one who forgives.

Forgiving the people hurting them will free their heart so they can walk away and not return the hurt in kind. They will then see the love others have for them. They will hear the call of true friends.

Ponder:

Do your children see you holding onto past hurts from others, or do they see you forgiving them, not allowing a hurtful comment to ruin your day? 

Pray:

Lord, help me model to my children the art of forgiving others no matter what. Let them see You in me today, so they, too, will learn how to forgive. 

Copyright 2025 Carol Sbordon Bannon