"Wrath and anger are hateful things," we're told in today's first reading from Sirach, "Yet the sinner hugs them tight." This seems to describe our popular culture very well. People seem to feel good about being angry. In political debate, for example, it seems that leaders from both parties are delighted when their opponents get in some kind of trouble, and move quickly to express anger against their opponents words or actions. While this may be expected on the national stage, we can fall victim to the same tendency in our families, schools, and workplaces. For me, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that someone else's failure makes me appear more successful.

It is not true, of course, and it is a sinister tendency. Instead of delighting in the success of our friends and co-workers, we can be tempted to delight in their failure. This may be common in a free market economy, but it is not to be common among Christians. We are called to live our lives based on the principles of love and forgiveness. Why? Because God loves us and, thank goodness, God forgives us.

We can only forgive others if we are in touch with our own fallibility. "If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath," the reading continues, "who will forgive his sins?" If we withhold forgiveness to someone, it betrays the fact that we think we don't need forgiveness ourselves. I don't know about you, but I am aware of my need for forgiveness just about every day. Each day I fail to be the person I want to be - as a husband, son, father, employee and friend. Who am I to hold someone else to a standard of perfection I cannot hope to achieve? If I cherish wrath, who will forgive me?

Fortunately God does not call us to be perfect but to be faithful. Part of being faithful means turning to God when we fail to live as we should. Another part of being faithful means forgiving those who, in their failure to be perfect, harm us.

Our culture cherishes wrath, and holds on to anger. We are for the most part a culture of entitlements, taught that we deserve to have our every desire satisfied. If someone obstructs our right to this satisfaction, we want them to pay a dear price.

In today's Gospel reading Peter asks Jesus how many times he must forgive his brother. "Seven times?" Peter asks, probably thinking he's being pretty magnanimous. Jesus tells Peter he should forgive his brother an unlimited amount of times, and tells a parable of a servant who begs for mercy and receives it, but then lashes out in judgment against his friends. If we hold on to anger and wrath against others, who will forgive us?

The good news of the Gospel is that we all need forgiveness, and that God offers it to all of us. Perhaps the only irrevocable sin we can commit is to resist this forgiveness, or to think somehow that we don't need it. If we take this view, we risk developing a terrible superiority complex, one that could foster contempt for other people. Today's readings tell us that in God's eyes, wrath and anger are hateful things. They must be hateful things in our eyes as well.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.