If your brother sins (against you)

13 AUGUST (Mt 18,15-20)

The community of the disciples of Jesus lives in the sanctity of all its members. The greatest light of obedience to every word of the Gospel must always shine in it, perennially read and understood under the powerful guidance of the Holy Spirit. Never should in the heart of a single Christian the light be turned off, rather every day it should be more brilliant, more radiant and greater. It is from the light that the world sees the presence of Jesus Christ and blesses and gives thanks and praises to the heavenly Father.

Jesus wants that there is fraternal correction in his community. He also defines its rules, arrangements for it to be always made according to charity, mercy, compassion and only a desire to do good to the one who has sinned. There is a transgression of the commandment of the Lord perpetrated against a person. It is the victim who has to go towards the offender, so that he warns him, invites him to sin no more. The offender must be warned of the evil committed. He could also have done it involuntarily; since evil is evil and not good, it is right that the brothers are not offended. You cannot live in peace in a community where some offend others.

The Christian community must live with the purest love, the holy charity, mutual respect and this can only happen in obedience to every Word of Lord Jesus. If there is injury, no respect, no love, no truth, no justice, no holiness, there is suffering, discouragement and disappointment. The offended could also cool off, fall in turn into the temptation of being themselves also offenders, they could even slip into the sin of revenge and of course this would be a serious detriment to the whole people of God. The Church must be illuminated within herself with an increasingly greater light. If in her womb the light is absent, never might there be it on her outside. The mission would be highly unsuccessful. A church without light is dead. A dead church is with no mission, because it lacks the holy light with which to illuminate the nations.

If your brother warned, listens and recedes from his not good and not holy conduct, everything must end immediately. When the will returns to the Gospel, everything has to be lived by the Gospel. Even the offended must live of Gospel; that is, he must grant complete forgiveness for the offense received. What has been done must be deemed canceled, remitted and forgiven. Any dispute must be regarded as closed. On the contrary, if the offender does not listen, does not let himself be persuaded of his sin, the offended is called by Jesus to return to the offender with two witnesses. This is an official warning. Evil has been done and it must be recognized. The community cannot live in peace if its children do not recognize their sins to their brothers. The one who is officially warned has to confess his guilt and recede from it. This is the sole and exclusive purpose of correction. This is required by the holiness of the Church of God.

“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.”

If the offender before an official, legal, canonical warning, does not even acknowledge his sin, there is an obligation to report everything to the community. This time they come out of the private and enter the public sphere. The sinner must be cautioned publicly so that he recedes from his non holy conduct. If he does not even listen to the community, Jesus asks that he is considered as a pagan or a tax collector. He cannot be recognized as his disciple, because he persists in sin.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints make us live without sin.