(Ezekiel
33:7-9; Romans 13:8-10; Matthew 18:15-20)
Dear fellow Catholics and Christians
I must make clear for you today that our Gospel reading was written by St.
Matthew for his Jewish-Christian community of the first century. The general guidance given there is for all
Christians; but the detailed and specific procedures quoted by St. Matthew were
given by Jesus to Jews who, as a nation, had been prepared by God for some two
thousand years in order to be able to understand and practically appreciate that
teaching. Such formal details were not
intended by Jesus -- indeed are hardly possible and most certainly not obligatory
-- for Catholics and devout Christians in our modern, sinful and adulterous, societies.
Let us first of all have a look at
what I have just called the ‘general guidance’ for all Christians and basic to Christian
morality:
If your brother sins
against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your
brother.
Such was Jesus’ consistent attitude
in such matters: don’t let things fester, have it out in the open;
if possible, put it right without delay, with all honesty and humility.
Such an attitude and such a solution
was possible for meticulous former Pharisees or Sadducees – Matthew’s suggested
Church congregation – who’s emotions were closely geared with their legal minds;
and Scripture gives us the supreme example of Saint Paul literally following
Jesus’ teaching by openly rebuking Saint Peter for dissimulation (Galatians 2:11-15)!
Nevertheless, for today, when people’s
emotions are much more free-ranging and for immediate self-expression, it is
not likely to be a generally accepted or acceptable procedure.
Jesus, however, had a much more
comprehensive teaching than that specified by St. Matthew for his Church
congregation; it is a teaching that Jesus committed to Saint Peter for the
future Church of which he, Peter, would be the chosen head; a teaching which totally
eliminates grudges nourished or retaliation planned for harm thought
to have been done:
If you forgive men their
trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive
your trespasses. (Matthew
6:14-15; cf. 18:22-35)
That truly radical, unique, and even
still today, most astounding, demand of Jesus as regards fraternal
charity among His disciples, made in those words for St. Peter’s personal guidance, develops teaching first mentioned
in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount: revenge is not allowed, and if cherished is
unforgiveable, for all believers in Jesus.
Think on that, dear People of God,
for all gangs feed on revenge; even world-wide religions allow
their supporters to practice, and pride themselves on, vengeful justification
of their faith; and ‘little men’ and ‘poisoned women’ of our modern
world, like to think of getting-their-own-back for offences real or imagined.
Today’s words of Saint Paul -- our Blessed
Lord’s gift-to-the-nations -- are most
relevant here:
Owe
nothing to anyone except to love one another.
For Christian society, such love is both the foundation and the fulfilment of the
Christian way of life, as St. Paul
teaches the nations:
For just as we have
many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function; so
we, who are many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of
another.
Love is the fulfilment
of the law. (Romans 12:4-5; 13:10)
I cannot now go on to talk with you
about the nature and beauty of that
Christian love, but nevertheless we have already, dear People of God, revealed
a panoramic view of the wonder of our Catholic (for precision’s sake!)
faith: the power and strength, the beauty and holiness, the life-bestowing goodness
and soul-cleansing truth, of God’s fatherly love for us in Jesus!
Before closing, however, let me just
take-up for you that expression ‘fatherly-love’, because our first reading from
the prophet Ezekiel told us of God insisting on a moral duty for Ezekiel
himself that concerns all Christian parents.
As Christian parents whose marriage
is dedicated to God, any children they may have are regarded as gifts from God
to be loved, nurtured, and brought up for His glory and their ultimate
salvation and blessing. For that purpose
Catholic and Christian parents have authority over their children which is God-given
and which no government can negate; an authority before men which also begets
a responsibility before God, because He has appointed them as watchman
for the house of God which is their Catholic and Christian family home. May their exercise of that personal God-given
authority and power-for-good be for them a most loving work, joyful privilege, and
life-long cause of heart-felt gratitude.
