Sunday, September 10, 2017 23rd Sunday in
Ordinary Time 1st Reading: Ezekiel 33:7-9 2nd Reading: Romans 13:8-10 Gospel: Matthew 18:15-20
Jesus said to his disciples, “If your brother or sister has sinned against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are in private, and if he listens to you, you have won your brother. If you are not listened to, take with you one or two others so that the case may be decided by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he still refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembled Church. But if he does not listen to the Church, then regard such a one as a pagan or a publican.
“I say to you: whatever you bind on earth, heaven will keep bound; and whatever you unbind on earth, heaven will keep unbound.
“In like manner, I say to you: if on earth two of you are united in asking for anything, it will be granted to you by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered in my Name, I am there among them.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated Life
Experience)
An anecdote is told of a teenager who bought three Valentine’s cards captioned “To the sweetest girl I have ever met!” The fact that he bought three cards means he had in mind three sweetest girls in his life. Needless to say, he will end up loving neither of the three the way they should be loved in the superlative.
In a similar way, although we worship Father, Son, and Spirit, we acknowledge only one God. “God” means the most powerful and there cannot be three beings occupying the highest position. Language is yet to reinvent itself to allow more than one entity to sit in that one place of honor reserved for the superlative. Even then, the heart will grope in the dark. How can the heart give all of itself to three beloveds? The confusion is succinctly expressed by the song “Sana dalawa ang puso ko”. We have only one heart, and God would like to be loved with all our heart and with all our soul. If God were to divide himself into three we will never be able to love fully any of the three. We’d end up loving neither of the three.
The Trinity will always be one, and God would like us to be absorbed into that unity. That is why the Father also dreams of unity for all of us. We can help the Father achieve this dream by praying together. The Father knows already what we want long before we express them in prayerful words. But we must pray because it is in prayer that God finds his people united. In turn he gives us this promise:
“if on earth two of you are united in asking for anything, it will be granted to you by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered in my Name, I am there among them.” – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM
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