Reading 1
You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel;
when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me.
If I tell the wicked, “O wicked one, you shall surely die, ”
and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way,
the wicked shall die for his guilt,
but I will hold you responsible for his death.
But if you warn the wicked,
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.
Responsorial Psalm
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD;
let us acclaim the rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God,
and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:
“Harden not your hearts as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the desert,
Where your fathers tempted me;
they tested me though they had seen my works.”
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Reading 2
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.
Alleluia
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
“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.”
Homily for Nativity on Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time 9/6/2020
EZEK 33:7-9; PS 95; ROM 13:8-10; MT 18:15-20
The word love gets thrown around a lot of different ways. Today’s second reading says, “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.” We use “love” in so many different ways, but my favorite definition for love is “to will what is best for the other” or “to do what is best for the good of their soul.”
Everything in the 10 Commandments were trying to get at that. God gave us the commandments tring to help us to love but they had more of a negative spin, so finally after over a thousand years of living with the commandments, Jesus comes along and puts a positive spin on them.
Instead of “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” it is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” God doesn’t change who He is, it is just now a positive spin, just a different technique in teaching us how to live, the best way to live.
Now, we are focused on loving one another, willing what is best for someone else. “Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.” The law, the commandments aren’t necessary if we understand love properly. Christians who have properly formed their consciences are able to see how they and others are committing some type of sin, a failure to love.
Prophets have this task in the Old Testament, so you had Ezekiel in the first reading, that God has appointed Ezekiel as “watchman for the house of Israel; when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me,” to tell sinners of their faults, and hopefully, to “speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way.”
The goal is to warn them that they would stop that action, which will eventually lead to death for their guilt, but rather they would change, become holy and loving towards their neighbor, and loving towards God in the process.
And then we have Jesus in the Gospel who said “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.”
Now, this is often a difficult thing. Nobody really likes conflict, nobody wants to be in conflict with their brother, or anybody, and it’s just not a fun place to be - to have a difficult conversation, it’s not easy.
But if we truly love someone, and we truly will what is best for them and for their soul, then we have to have those conversations when someone is in sin. We have to be able to tell them, in a loving way, but we have to tell them.
You know, often people would rather just ignore it. Because it is risky, pointing out someone's failings may lead to them getting offended or them rejecting you. Everyone wants to be liked, right, even me, so speaking truth is risky. We even see that with parents who are too afraid to discipline a child.
But true love will take a risk, because Love always goes after what is best for the other, a true friend always tells you when you are wrong so you can straighten out and we know that Jesus is a true friend and He does that for us especially through His Church even.
Pope Francis said in Evangelii Gaudium, “The Gospel tells us to correct others and to help them to grow on the basis of a recognition of the objective evil of their actions, but without making judgments about their responsibility and culpability.”
He’s saying that we must correct others, but we don’t have to be judgmental about it.
This gospel goes on to say “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.”
So Jesus is acting through His church still today to tell us the hard things we have to know in order to love properly.
Often the Catholic Church and its ministers insist on the hard truths, she says “no” sometimes, such as no contraception, no sex outside of marriage, no in vitro fertilization, no cloning, and then she encourages us, like encouraging us to go to weekly Mass, confession, to have self-control, love selflessly and pray daily.
Often we complain and whine or even rebel against the Church, but if the Church loves us, if God loves us, how can she do anything else? We have to know the truth, the church has to speak the truth to us or else we won’t know how to stay in right-relationship with God and with our brothers and sisters.
So the Church does that for us because she loves us. It’s like a parent telling a child “no” to touching a hot stove, it’s not because it wants to limit their freedom or not have fun, it is because the parent doesn't want the child to get hurt.
In the Church’s wisdom, it recognizes the hurt and pain that will happen, to ourselves and/or to others, if we continue on in a life of sin. So myself, as a priest of the Church, sometimes I have to say the difficult things, speaking truth in love, or else the guilt falls on my head for not warning people.
The big thing is that Jesus Christ is coming again, and he wants us to be with him, He wants us to be with Him in heaven and He wants us to grow in Holiness to get there. Jesus speaks through His people and through His Church, mother Church.
“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” So are we willing to listen to our brother? Are we willing to listen to the Church, knowing that she loves us as a mother loves her children.
She tells us what is best, she tells us the truth, because love wills the best for the other. Are we willing to listen? Are we willing to put away our selfish desires, to humble ourselves and to listen to the one that has our best interest in mind?