Wednesday,
August 13, 2014
19th Week in Ordinary Time 1st Reading: Ez 9:1-7; 10:18-22
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)
As members of the Church we need to correct one another in the spirit of charity. We are our brothers’ keepers. To this end charity, forgiveness, and compassion are important. Because we are our brothers’ keepers there are times when we just have to take a deep breath and give our erring brothers a second chance.
But this does not mean we can just sacrifice our rights at the expense of justice. The Gospel suggests that if our brother will not come to the table of negotiation, we avail of the Church’s intervention. The problem is that our hierarchical Church has no police power. Church life largely revolves around moral obligations, not civil. But there is a new concept of Church evolving in recent years in the consciousness of the people. People are now realizing that they do not only belong to the Church but that they are the church. Recall what happened to the Redemptorist priest in Cebu who was caught on video berating a minor mom at the baptism ceremony of the minor’s own child. The video was uploaded and garnered a million likes in a matter of hours. Netizens cited teachings and pronouncements of Pope Francis on compassion, biblical verses on mercy were revisited and reactors took turns in condemning the act of the priest. The Redemptorist community wasted no time in taking action and the priest humbled himself and apologized. This is church at work!
But the next time anything like this happens it would be nice if netizens too practice fraternal correction in a charitable way. By berating and insulting the priest in social media some reactors were doing the very act for which they were lambasting the priest. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email:dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website:www.frdan.org.
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