Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, September 5, 2020

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
September 5, 2020

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The text that guided the homily was: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, when Jesus will speak to us about two important realities in our faith: prayer and fraternal correction.
• The first is prayer. Jesus says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there will I be in their midst.” This is an incredible promise given to us by Jesus, but we have to understand first what it means and why he said it. It does not mean that whenever two or more Christians are in the same place doing anything whatever that Jesus is automatically there. Jesus promises to be there, rather, when they are gathered “in his name.” To gather in Jesus’ name means to gather in his person seeking what Jesus seeks. While we can obviously pray to Jesus when we’re alone and should, Jesus particularly incentivizes gathering together in his name. Many people today think it’s sufficient to have a so-called “private” relationship with Jesus, to pray on their own and say that’s an adequate substitution for coming to Mass, or praying as a family. It’s very clear, however, that Jesus wanted us to come together to pray. When his disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, he taught them to pray “Our Father,” not “My Father, who art in heaven,” for the obvious reason that he wanted us to pray it with others. Even when we pray the “Our Father” alone, he wants us to remember others, which is why he taught us to pray, “Give usthis day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive…,” etc. Jesus came down from heaven to earth to found a family, and he wants us to live and to pray as a loving family.
• This leads us to the second thing he teaches us in the Gospel this Sunday, what the saints have called “fraternal correction.” Whenever we gather together with others in the name of the One who saves us from our sins, as a family whose members deeply love each other, then it’s obvious that we should always desire lovingly to help the other members of the family truly to overcome any obstacles flowing from sin that prevent communion with God or each other. Jesus says, “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. … 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.” These stages should us the effort the Lord asks of us to accompany those who make mistakes, those who sin, so that they’re not lost. Whenever a brother or sister has wandered through sin, whenever he or she is going off the deep end, Jesus tells us to gather with that brother or sister in his name and try to help that sibling realize and begin to overcome his or her sin.
• Jesus’ teaching on fraternal correction is very challenging. We are living 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” or “offensive” or “harsh.” They say it’s important to be civil, to agree to disagree, to live and let live, to mind our business, and to be tolerant. But this mentality comes from a lack of courage, a lack of seriousness about what sin really does, and a lack of love for them and for God. If we really care for a person, we’ll have the guts and the love to intervene, because we know that sin kills those who sin and does immeasurable harm to others. Another reason why Jesus’ teaching on fraternal correction is challenging today is because some who misunderstand what it really means have given it a bad name. They look at this teaching as a license for ripping other people apart. We’ve all suffered from people who are chronic complainers, incessant naggers, who really can’t say anything nice about others, but who use the faith as a weapon to tear others down in order to try to build themselves up. We don’t want to be numbered among them for obvious reasons. But even though they need to take the planks from their eyes to see clearly to help others charitably take the specks out their eyes, Jesus doesn’t permit us to use them as an excuse. Fraternal correction is a duty of love, in which we approach others as humble fellow sinners trying to help them do better, uniting with them in the name of the Lord to battle sin together.
• Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. The Lord is calling us to be his instrument to help our husband or wife, son or daughter, mother or father, friend, boss, employee, pastor, priest or religious sister or brother, teacher a pupil — anyone whose conduct is clearly not what the Lord wants it to be. If we know of someone living in a sinful relationship, the Lord wants us, like John the Baptist before Herod, to be his voice calling them, gently, lovingly, and firmly to conversion. If someone is addicted to drugs, or booze, the Lord wants us to intervene. If someone is missing Mass on Sundays, the Lord is calling us to act to try to persuade them to think about the good of their soul. If he or she is lying, cheating, stealing, cursing, gossiping or setting bad example, the Lord is counting on us to speak to them about it and ask them to change. How do we do this? The particular means should vary from person to person, but there are a few general rules.
• First, we should pray for the person and ask the Lord to help us see how best to communicate his truth to him or her.
• Second, the saints propose that we make some small sacrifices for the person, like fasting. As Jesus teaches us in the Gospel, some demons are cast out “only by prayer and fasting” (Mt 17:21; Mk 9:29). Sacrificing for the other person also helps to do everything we’re doing out of true love for the other person.
• Third, we should act at an appropriate time and in an appropriate way. We don’t want to ambush someone, when the person will be shocked and defense. Jesus says we should first go to the person in private, not write an open letter, with a meek and humble tone, so that the other person realizes that our goal is not to make a point or to win an argument but to win a brother or sister, so that both of us will be brought into greater loving communion with Jesus. If it doesn’t work in private, then the Lord tells us to try it with a couple of other people the person trusts and who can be trusted to keep things in private. Hopefully the added witness and love will be enough to convince the person to correct his or her behavior and, if necessary, seek help. This is what happens, of course, with interventions done to help alcoholics and drug users. But if the person persists in wrongdoing, we should go to the Church, to those who can join in prayer, and if the particular offense warrants it, to the hierarchy which can lovingly give the person an appropriate ecclesiastical admonition to warn of the eternal danger he or she is risking and may know that by that behavior he is separating himself from God and his community. When Jesus says that we should treat someone as a “gentile or a tax collector,” he’s calling us to pray for them like we would pray for those who clearly are no longer living members of our community because they’re too addicted to sin.
• The flip-side of this teaching on fraternal correction, of course, is that when someone comes to us with a Christian correction, we should be grateful, even if at first we think the person is off the mark. It shows us that that person cares enough about us to try to help us become better. These are our real friends, the ones who love us so much that they’ll risk their friendship with us to try to give us the help we need. We should see Jesus in them, patiently forming us into the person he calls us to be, and be grateful.
• “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst.” As we prepare to gather on Sunday, we thank the Lord for not just remaining “in our midst,” but for entering inside of us, so that, together with him, we may be courageous in making and receiving fraternal correction, so that one day all of us may be reunited in that eternal kingdom where communion with God and with each other will know no end.

The Gospel on which the homily was based was: 

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