Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven

14 AUGUST (Mt 18,15-20)

Throughout the Old Testament only once such a thing occurred. God has given so much power to one man. However, it is a matter of a power limited to that precise historical moment and to that particular period of life of the people.

Thus says the Lord, the God of hosts: Up, go to that official, Shebna, master of the palace, Who has hewn for himself a sepulcher on a height and carved his tomb in the rock: “What are you doing here, and what people have you here, that here you have hewn for yourself a tomb?” The Lord shall hurl you down headlong, mortal man! He shall grip you firmly And roll you up and toss you like a ball into an open land To perish there, you and the chariots you glory in, you disgrace to your master’s house! I will thrust you from your office and pull you down from your station. On that day I will summon my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah; I will clothe him with your robe, and gird him with your sash, and give over to him your authority. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open. I will fix him like a peg in a sure spot, to be a place of honor for his family; On him shall hang all the glory of his family: descendants and offspring, all the little dishes, from bowls to jugs. On that day, says the Lord of hosts, the peg fixed in a sure spot shall give way, break off and fall, and the weight that hung on it shall be done away with; for the Lord has spoken” (Is 22,15-25).

On the contrary, what the Lord proclaims today is different. His Word is not just for one person, or a class of persons. It applies to every disciple of the Lord. God gives him so much power as to constitute his will as if it were the will of his Father who is in heaven. The Christian decides to loosen on earth and it is loosened in Heaven. He decides to bind on earth and it will be bound in heaven. So great is the love with which God bound himself to the disciples of Jesus. These bind and he binds. These loosen and he loosens. They decide and he decides. These want and He wants.

“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. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, 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, (amen,) I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

However, this promise does not act automatically. The example comes to us from the Virgin Mary at the Cana wedding. In this particular context, Mary wants and the heavenly Father wants. If the Father wants the Son also wants. The will of Mary, manifested through her prayer, is answered. Her request granted. In Mary, this could happen, it does perpetually, eternally, because she is are all inhabited by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of the Lord is her breath, her thought, her will, her desires and her every feeling. The Holy Spirit is her heart, her mind and her every aspiration. Since the Spirit of the Lord is the one who acts in her, the Spirit puts her always in perfect communion with the Father.

This is the mystery of the loosening and the binding. This perennial miracle happens, can only take place in the Holy Spirit. It is He who awakens in us the loosening and the binding according to the will of God. We bind what God wants to be bound up and loosen what God wants us to be loosened. The Spirit reveals to us what the will of the Father is and since we are in the Spirit, through our action we perform always and only his divine and eternal will. One does not loosen and does not bind independently from God, but in perfect communion in the Holy Spirit. If we did it without the Spirit of the Lord, we would commit a true act of idolatry, we would take the place of God and we would act as foolish, ignorant and senseless people do, devoid of any supernatural intelligence.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints teach us true communion.