Wednesday in the 19th Week of Ordinary Time, August 14, 2024

Matthew 18, 15-20

Jesus said to his disciples: “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.”

A little earlier in his Gospel, St, Matthew reports how the Lord Jesus said to the Apostle Peter, “You are Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16, 18).  Here, in today’s Gospel Reading, the Lord again speaks of his “Church”.  It is clear from taking the two references together that the Lord assertively was founding a structured organization.  He does not speak in such a way as to allow it to be understood as merely the collective or community of believers, but of a body of those joined to him through grace.  For instance, Jesus allows the Church a role in whether a person who has gravely sinned should be excommunicated.  Also, in speaking of building his Church on the rock that is Peter, the Lord invokes the image of the foundation, the main structure, the roof, and the courtyard around the building.  Later, in rebuking the priests in Jerusalem, he will speak of himself as the keystone of a certain structure — the people of God through their being connected and held up by the Son.

This structure is no mere tent but a fortress that, unlike any fortress every built, besieges but is not itself besieged.  It will besiege the kingdom of hell and prevail against it by protecting the faithful and also by rescuing souls from the devil’s grasp by preaching the Gospel, through earnest prayer, and by the example of saintly lives.  That is the meaning of the Lord’s teaching, “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: the work of the Church is the worship of God and the conversion of souls.

“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.”  This power of binding and loosing is given to the Apostles and so to their successors, the bishops of the Church the Lord founded.  It specifically pertains to sin and forgiveness.  It is clear from the context of how to treat one unrepentant of grave sin that the power of excommunication is granted to bishops, but it also is exercised by priests in the Sacrament of Penance.  We members of the Holy Church of God ought to think deeply about this divine power which is delegated to human beings, demonstrating how set on the salvation of each one is to Almighty God.