Wednesday in the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 11, 2021

The Feast of St. Clare

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.”

The first verse is more literally translated: “If your brother sins against you, go, rebuke him between you and him alone.  If he hears you, you have avoided the loss of your brother.”  The Lord is describing the procedure to be followed in the Church when strife occurs between its members.  The “brother” here is whatever person has sinned against another.  The wording in the lectionary translation has, “tell him his fault”, which is not the same as the Greek verb, which means “rebuke”.  That is, Accuse him of his sin and tell him of the consequences it has had for you.  “If he hears you”, meaning, if he pays attention to what you say, understands what you say, or obeys you upon hearing what you say — all ways the verb can be translated — then you have avoided the loss of your brother.  The latter is a much better way to understand the verb translated here as “gained your brother”, which does not seem to mean much.  It makes sense to translate it as “avoiding the loss” when we read that the sinner who does not hear the Church is to be cut off from it: “Treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.”  We see St. Paul enforcing this injunction in 1 Corinthians 5, 2: “Let him who has done this be removed from among you.”  This is excommunication.   As Paul points out later, the purpose of removing the unrepentant sinner or heretic is not to punish, but to serve a warning, to point out the seriousness of the offense, and to make clear the urgency needed for the amendment of one’s life.  

“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.”  This verse may or may not be part of the above.  It may simply be a loose saying of the Lord that St. Matthew wanted to preserve but that he did not recall its original context.  At any rate, it is a very important and remarkable saying, that God “gave such power to men” (Matthew 9, 7).  Many have been saved at the hour of their deaths through the application of the Apostolic Pardon, which invokes this verse.  Upon his ordination, the Catholic priest receives the faculty of applying the Pardon in a grant by the Apostolic See.  It absolves all sins and releases the penitent who is dying from all punishments due to sin in this life and in the life to come.  It is, of course, necessary for the recipient to be truly sorry for his sins and to be detached from anything sinful. 

“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.”  This is also a remarkable grant by the Lord Jesus.  But as the purpose of this and the above promise regarding “binding and loosing” is for salvation, we must consider that the prayers of which the Lord speaks are for growth in virtue, the forgiveness of sins, for a particular conversion, for the succor of one in purgatory, and for things of this kind.  

Reading the words of the Lord Jesus as he provides procedures and gives directions allow us to peer into his Sacred Heart which so deeply yearns for the peace of his followers here on earth and for the conversion of the world.