Word to the Wise
Wednesday, August 13, 2014 - Wednesday in the 19th Week in Ordinary Time
[Ezek 9:1-7; 10:18-22 and Matt 18:15-20]"If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault betwen 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...."
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 2014 WEDNESDAY IN THE NINETEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
[Ezekiel 9:1-7; 10:18-22 and Matthew 18:15-20]
"If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault betwen 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...."
Somewhere in my library there is a book with the amusing-but-not-amusing title: SINCE STRANGLING IS NOT AN OPTION. It's a book about dealing with difficult people in the work or other group setting! Since I am the local religious superior [the Prior] of the community of Dominican friars here, I am occasionally tempted to go looking for that book! However, the Gospel of Matthew does provide a model that I have found to be pretty effective, and it has Jesus' own endorsement!
Compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation go well together but are not the same things. Whatever may cause an individual to be at odds with a community or other person may be worthy of our compassion, but that does not imply permissiveness. The community to whom the Gospel of Matthew was directed would have been like all human communities, composed of people who could be both saints and sinners. In a serious matter, however, there has to be a process of some kind that can allow for resolution without coming to blows or creating a permanent rupture! That is what the gospel offers to us today. It starts privately but can become more and more public, depending on the good will of the offending party!
Since it is harder for me to find the book I mentioned above and the gospel is always close at hand, I am inclined as a matter of faith and experience to Jesus' model. I hope you will find it helpful too! AMEN
config
view
logs
4096.0 KB
97 ms
4
