The Fulfillment of the Law, Twenty-Third Sunday (A), September 10, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Convent of the Missionaries of Charity, Bronx, NY
Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
September 10, 2023
Ezek 33:7-9, Ps 95, Rom 13:8-10, Mt 18:15-20

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• Today St. Paul tells the Christians in Rome and all of us words that, on the 77^th anniversary of Inspiration Day, underline the importance of the mission of the Missionaries of Charity: “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Basing himself on Jesus’ words that the law and the prophets all flow from the two-fold commandment to love God with all of our mind, heart, soul and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mt 22:40), St. Paul describes how the second tablet of the Decalogue can all be summed up in the phrase, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love is our duty. We owe it others. We owe it precisely God commanded us to love one another as Jesus himself has loved us. We owe it because Jesus told us that whatever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to him. And so today is a day in which we focus on Jesus’ infinite loving thirst for souls and how he wants us to satiate that thirst by thirsting as he thirsts, by fulfilling the law of love for those who in the world are most forgotten and abandoned. We ponder with gratitude our common call within our baptismal call, to fulfill all of God’s commandments through the perfection of charity.
• We see that path to love in today’s Gospel in the call to communion. Love unites and hence Jesus wants our communion to be the flourishing of divine and human love. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name,” he says, “there am I in the midst of them.” If we are living in love, we will be living in communion. Jesus would say during the Last Supper, “By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:35) and would pray that we would be one as the Persons of the Blessed Trinity are one, so that the world would know that God the Father sent the Son and loves us just as much as he loves the Son. And so Jesus wants us to gather in his name, to pray together his name, even making the extraordinary promise that if two of us gather in his name — meaning together with his Person — to pray for something, it will be granted by God the Father. He also wants us to live together in his name, to eat together in his name, to recreate together in his name, and to do everything, whether in word or deed, in loving communion with Jesus and each other.
• In the first part of today’s Gospel, however, Jesus makes clear that he’s calling us to something far more challenging that getting together at a campfire and singing kumbaya. He gives us one of the most challenging aspects of fraternal love, one many are tempted not to fulfill: namely, his teaching on fraternal correction. Jesus directs us: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault.” He instructs us to do so first one-on-one, out of respect for the person. But if that doesn’t work, he tells us not to give up, but out of love to return with a couple of others who have observed the same fault, in the hope that the collective concern might help the person get over his or her denial or stubbornness to change. If that doesn’t work, Jesus tells us to persevere and go to our superiors, to the leaders of the Church, to pray for the person and to intervene with greater authority. And if that, too, is unsuccessful, Jesus tells us to treat the person as we would a tax collector or sinner, which doesn’t mean to write the person off — after all, Jesus was a “friend of tax collectors and sinners,” who drew near to them and ate with them — but to recognize that the person is not in communion and to pray for that person with the same passion with which we pray for the conversion of sinners inside and outside the Church. Fraternal correction is part of the duty of love we owe our brothers and sisters. We can’t fulfill the law of love without it.
• It’s helpful to remember that in Matthew’s Gospel, this passage is immediately preceded by Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep, that just as a shepherd will leave the ninety-nine and go in search of the stray and rejoice more over its recovery than the docility of the other ninety-nine, so God the Father’s will is that not one sheep be lost. We’re supposed to love our erring spiritual siblings the way God the Father loves lost sheep and fraternal correction is part of that love. It’s also useful to remember that right after this passage, St. Matthew tells us that St. Peter went to Jesus to ask how many times we must forgive a brother who sins against us, and Jesus replies, “not seven times, but seventy sevens,” and whether that means giving a 78th chance or a 491st chance, the point is clear: fraternal correction isn’t about winning an argument but reconciling with a brother or sister, so that, as Jesus suggests in the Gospel, we may gather again, as two or more in his name, to pray and to live in true communion, with him in our midst.
• Jesus’ words on the duty of fraternal correction have always been challenging, but they are particularly demanding today. We live in a culture that thinks the greatest value is to be “nice.” Many believe that we really should never correct anyone else, because that would make us seem “judgmental,” “offensive” or “harsh.” They assert it’s important to be “civil,” to agree to disagree, to live and let live, to mind our own business, and to be tolerant of everything except the traditional values that woke subculture considers intolerable. But this mentality comes from a lack of lack of love, a failure of fortitude, and a shortage of seriousness about the harm sin really does. If we really care for a person, we will have the guts, love and maturity to intervene, because we know that sin wounds the individual, wounds others, and wounds the love of God. Some people try to justify a failure to live this teaching on fraternal correction by pretending that “love of neighbor” means precisely not admonishing but rather “accepting” the person and rubber stamping whatever choices the person makes. When we look at Jesus’ example in the Gospel, however, we see that, even though he was “kind and merciful” (Ex 34:6; Ps 103:8; Ps 145:8) and “meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29), he was certainly not “nice” and “tolerant” as the world uses these terms today. In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus called Peter “Satan” and reproved him for thinking not as God does but as human beings do. He fraternally corrected James and John when they were ambitiously seeking the choicest seats in his Messianic administration, telling them that in order to be great, they needed to become the servants, rather than the overseers, of the rest, all the way to the point of drinking his chalice of suffering. He regularly fraternally corrected the apostles, like when they were jealous of others’ casting out demons in his name. He fiercely fraternally corrected the moneychangers in the temple, whose tables he overturned and whom he whipped out of the temple for turning his Father’s house into a den of thieves. And more than anyone else, he often gave fraternal corrections to the Scribes and the Pharisees, whom he called “hypocrites,” “blind guides,” “fools,” “whitewashed sepulchers,” and a “brood of vipers.” None of these actions was “civil” or “nice.” Jesus, however, had come to save the money changers, the Scribes and the Pharisees, and Peter and the apostles; and to do that, he had to first let them know that and how they were veering from the Gospel, veering from Him, veering from love. In the same way, we have to have the courage to risk being considered uncivil or no longer nice if a brother or sister needs our help.
• When St. Paul lists the fruits of the Spirit in his letter to the Galatians, he uses two words right after each other that most us of consider synonyms. He says that when we’re living according to the Holy Spirit we are both “kind” and “good,” which are translations of the Greek words chrestotes and agathosune. Chrestotes means a goodness that is always seeking to help positively, but agathosune is a goodness that includes rebuke and discipline. Jesus showed chrestotes or kindness when he cared for the sinful woman who washed his feet with her tears in Simon the Pharisee’s house; he showed agathosune when he cleansed the Temple. The Holy Spirit seeks to bring about in us the same, interconnected Christ-like chrestotes andagathosune, the same kindness and courageous, loving goodness.
• The failure to link agathosune to chrestotes helps us to understand a second reason why Jesus’ teaching on fraternal correction is often not followed: because some who misunderstand what fraternal correction really means have given it a bad name. They look at this teaching as a divine mandate for putting others down. Their comments and attitude are marinated in vinegar rather than in honey. We’ve all suffered from people who are chronic complainers, incessant naggers, who really can’t say anything nice about others, who try to use the faith as a weapon to tear others apart. There are some Catholic media sites today that ooze this type of battery acid, with one negative commentary after another, almost incapable of saying anything good about anyone except those who share not just their opinions but their negativity. Jesus words in the Sermon on the Mount are an important fraternal correction here: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye” (Mt 7:3-5). Too often in life, the clearest sign that a person is a mess inside is when he or she starts criticizing everyone else; a common, unconscious psychological diversion is to try to forget about our own problems is by focusing on everyone else’s issues so that we might feel relatively better by pretending everyone else is worse. But Jesus says to all of us who have fallen into this trap that first we must take the logs out of our own eyes so that we can see clearly to help others take the specks out of theirs. Notice that Jesus does not say, “If you’ve got your own issues, don’t give fraternal correction to others, don’t help them remove whatever is blinding them.” He wants us, however, to be doing so exclusively out of love, which is why we have to notice our own failings and be working on them first. It’s when we start to see ourselves clearly that we can give effective fraternal correction, not as a hypocrite who doesn’t practice what he preaches, but as a humble fellow sinner trying to help a brother or a sister do better, uniting with him in the name of the Lord to battle sin together. It’s one sick person telling another sick person where the doctor is and how to take his medicine.
• This duty of love Jesus gives us as his disciples is a most serious obligation. What if we don’t do it? What if we don’t correct our brother or sister when we see him or her erring? What if we just wait … and wait … and wait to see if someone else intervenes? God answers those questions clearly in his words to the prophet Ezekiel in today’s first reading: “If I tell the wicked man that he shall surely die, and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked man from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death. But if you warn the wicked man, trying to turn him from his way, and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but you shall save yourself.” In other words, giving fraternal correction to a brother or sister who needs it is not an optional thing we may or may not do depending upon whether we feel up to it; rather it is duty of love and a mission God gives us — and our salvation and others’ salvation depend on it. God calls Ezekiel a “watchman” for the house of Israel, someone who was tasked with keeping an eye out to protect the sheep from thieves or from wolves. We’re all called to be such watchmen. Today a better term would be a “lifeguard.” We’re called to be lifeguards for the human race. When we see others swimming in shark infested waters with those who are drawing them into evil, when we see others drowning in their own bad habits, God wants us to spring to action. To do so is to try to save lives, to be a hero, even if, at first, the person might not want to be helped. Priests and religious in a particular way are meant to be such sentinels. Despite our weaknesses, our Creator and Redeemer can give us what we need as we seek to carry out this duty for the love of God and others. We are our brothers’ keepers and if we see one of them astray, if we see one of them forming a bad habit, we’re called to act. Sometimes it may be good to consult a superior, confessor or spiritual director before approaching the person discreetly, but fraternal correction is a sign of a strong Christian community. When St. Josemaria Escriva used to visit different centers of Opus Dei in the world, one of the questions he would ask those living in the respective centers would be about the practice of fraternal correction. He always took it as a sign of a healthy house when it was done routinely, according to Jesus’ instructions in the Gospel, because we all need each other’s help to become the saints God calls us to be. Our real friends are not those who flatter us, or who continue to “enable” us to do things we know we shouldn’t do, but those who tell us, in love, where and when we’re heading down the wrong track. We should see Jesus in them, patiently forming us into the person he calls us to be, and be grateful.
• I remain thankful decades later for fraternal corrections I’ve received. They weren’t snatching me from the broad highway that leads to perdition onto the narrow way leading to life, but rather about some basic human habits. When I was in seminary, for example, I used to get together with five or six other friends each night at the end of the day to wind down. I enjoyed it a lot. We had lots of laughs. One afternoon, however, one of my friends came to my room and proceeded to tell me to the point: “Rog, listen. We all love you, but when we get together, do you realize that you do half the talking? You have to let other guys speak and not give commentary on everything everyone else is saying.” It was great advice. I hadn’t even realized that that’s what I had been doing. On another occasion after ordination, in a get together with priests, one of my friends was describing what his new book was about. He said something about CS Lewis from his book that I recognized he had taken out of context. So I called attention to it, I thought nicely, just for the sake of “accuracy.” A couple of days later, another priest who was there came to me and said, “Rog, you were right in your point about CS Lewis, but you were wrong to correct Phil in the middle of a get together. At a time in which we were all praising him for the accomplishment of his first book, your comment embarrassed him and you should apologize.” He was right and I did. I remember other corrections from my spiritual director when he told me I needed a new pair of shoes, because my shoes were so worn that they were a distraction, or that I needed to get a physical since it had been close to a decade since I had seen a doctor and I needed to take better care of my health. He was right on both scores. We all need friends like that who care about us enough, in little things and big, to help us. And we all need to become those types of friends, those types of Christ-like disciples.
• Christ’s teaching on fraternal correction has a clear Eucharistic key. Jesus’ incarnation, hidden life, public ministry, passion, death and resurrection, establishment of the sacraments and institution of the Eucharist in particular, were all meant to bring about koinonia, true communion, with God and with each other. If we come to bring our gift, the sacrifice of ourselves, to the altar, but recognize that there’s a lack of communion with our brother, he wants us to prioritize the reestablishment of that communion before we come to offer our gift (Mt 5:23-24). Fraternal correction is an application of this principle. It prepares us for the communion Jesus seeks to build by our becoming one with him through the reception of his Body and Blood. But the Mass also strengthens us from within with the agathosune of Christ, so that, together with him, we may more courageously and faithfully fulfill the duty of love we owe our neighbor. On this Inspiration Day, as we gather together in the Lord’s name and midst, conscious of his promise that whenever two or more of us agree on earth about anything for which we are to pray, it will be granted by the Father, let us ask God the Father in Jesus’ name to send forth anew the Holy Spirit and fill us with all we need to become sentinels, lifeguards, brothers, true Christians and missionaries of charity, capable of living in a communion of loving fraternal correction, so that one day all of us may be reunited in that eternal kingdom where the law of love will be fulfilled and our communion with God and each other will know no end.

Reading 2
rom 13:8-10

Brothers and sisters:
Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another;
for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery;
you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet, ”
and whatever other commandment there may be,
are summed up in this saying, namely,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Love does no evil to the neighbor;
hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.

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