Gospel Reading : Matthew 18:15-20
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
What do the Fathers say?
St AUGUSTINE. Our Lord admonishes us not to overlook one another’s faults, not seeking to blame, but watching what you can amend. For our rebuke should be in love, not eager to wound, but anxious to amend.
If you pass it by, you are become worse than he. He by doing you a wrong has done himself a great hurt; if you ignore your brother’s wound, you are more to blame because of your silence than he for his ill words to you.
For often we wrongly shun to teach and admonish, or to rebuke and check the wicked, either because the task is irksome, or because we want to escape their enmity, lest they should harm or obstruct us in temporal things. whether in gaining objects we desire, or in holding on to what our frailty fears to love.
But if any one delays reproof of evil doers, because he is waiting for a more fitting occasion, or fears to make them worse, or that they may be an impediment to the good and pious living of other weak ones, or may grieve them, or turn them from the faith; this may be seen as the prudence of charity.
And they who are set over the churches have a much weightier duty , to rebuke sin.
St HILARY. To hold out a great and terrible fear, by which all men should be reached in this present life, He pronounces that the judgment of the Apostles should be ratified, so that whosoever they bound on earth, i. e. left entangled in the noose of sin, and whosoever they loosed, i. e. accorded the pardon of God’s mercy to their salvation, that these should be bound and loosed in heaven.
St John CHRYSOSTOM. And be it noted, that He said not to the Primate of the Church, Bind such a man; but, If you shall bind him, the bonds shall be indissoluble. And see how He has set the incorrigible person under the yoke of a twofold necessity; to wit, the punishment that is here, namely, the casting out of the Church, when He said, Let him be to thee as a heathen; and the future punishment, saying, that he shall be bound in heaven.
St JEROME.All His foregoing discourse had invited us to union; now to make us embrace peace more anxiously, He holds out a reward, promising to be in the midst of two or three.
St John CHRYSOSTOM. Yet He said not barely, Where they are gathered together, but added, in my name, as much as to say, If any man look upon Me as the chief motive of his love to his neighbour, I will be with him.
How is it then that those who thus agree together do not obtain what they ask for? Firstly, because they ask things not expedient, and secondly because they do not bring that which they ought to contribute; Thirdly, because they pray seeking vengeance against those who have grieved them. And fourthly, because they seek mercy for sinners who have not repented.
ORIGEN. And this also is the reason why our prayers are not granted, because we do not agree together in all things upon earth, neither in doctrine, nor in conversation. For as in music, unless the voices are in time there is no pleasure to the hearer, so in the Church, unless they are united God is not. pleased therein, nor does He hear their words.
St JEROME. We may also understand this spiritually; where our spirit, soul, and body are in agreement, and have not within them conflicting wills, they shall obtain from My Father everything they shall ask; for none can doubt that that demand is good, where the body wills the same thing as the spirit.
Sources:
Bible readings from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition, copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Quotes of the Fathers from :
Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea Translated by St John Henry Newman
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