Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Intention: For students returning to Lasallian schools this week, that they find in their classrooms teachers who know their names and expect good things of them.
Today’s Gospel | 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.”
From the Eleventh Meditation for the Time of Retreat | Saint John Baptist de La Salle
You too must reprove and correct your disciples when they commit some fault, the more so because it is typical of children that they often make mistakes by doing many things without thinking. The reproofs and corrections give them time to reflect on what they have to do and cause them to watch over themselves in order not to be making the same mistakes. Be exact, then, not to allow considerable faults in them without providing this remedy for them.
Prayer
Eternal Father, your Son gave a plain instruction about conflict: go to the person, alone, first. Save us from the easier path of speaking to everyone except the one concerned. Give us the courage for the direct conversation and the restraint to keep it private. Where two or three of us gather to work something out, be in the middle of it. We ask this of you who lives and reigns with your Son and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.