Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

“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” (Matt.18:15). This passage does not permit us to tell someone off with blunt honesty. When sharing a correction, one should speak with kindness, grace, and care. To speak the truth without love only tears people down. To speak love without truth does not help the individual grow. When we speak the truth in love, we reflect how Jesus spoke and interacted with others, whether they were sinners or saints.

If we want to win our brother or sister over, our goal must be to help the individual. We should speak with respect, patience, and humility. Timing is of the essence. Excuse me for taking Saint Benedict out of context; his wisdom is priceless. “[The monk] should choose the appropriate moment and explain patiently to his superior the reasons…” (RB 68) The encounter should be an opportunity for both parties to grow in faith and holiness. When we acknowledge our limitations, we can grow in grace to the degree that we can actually move beyond ourselves. If we root our words in forgiveness and support, both parties can gain insight and be reconciled. Rollo May shared an interesting insight. “Tenderness emerges from the fact that the two persons, longing, as all individuals do, to overcome the separateness and isolation to which we are all heir because we are individuals, can participate in a relationship that, for the moment, is not of two isolated selves but a union.”

If we want to win our brother or sister over, we must be humble, gentle, and patient. We must strive to bear with the other person in love, and work toward unity and healing. “If we speak the truth in love, we will grow in every way into the likeness of Christ, who is the head of the body, the Church” (Eph. 4:15). As members of the Body of Christ, we should desire to win each other over in love, thereby laying the foundations for reconciliation. Love and truth must go hand in hand, as must mercy and justice. We want to speak God’s truth because His love clearly communicates both truth and love. We can only be agents of healing when our sight is not blurred by bitterness or resentment. There is a wonderful comment in the book of Proverbs: “My mouth always utters the truth, and I hate every kind of deception” (Pro. 8:7). We are called to proclaim a message of Truth that opens the hearer to change his or her lifestyle and accept the embrace of God who loves him or her.

Speaking the truth in love goes beyond the surface of things that is so easy to see. It takes effort to dig deeper. We place ourselves at risk when we try to expose the other person’s heart to a personal relationship with the God of Truth. If we want to win our brother or sister over, we must never lose sight of the goal: total surrender to the God of Love. We want to speak the truth of God in a spirit of love for the other person, so that he or she might experience the infinite love of Christ. This experience requires the individual to set out on the pilgrimage of faith. “But we, with unveiled faces, are beholding the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).

We who desire to win over our brothers and sisters have been appointed watchmen, as was Ezekiel. Out of love for the people God loves, we are to be vigilant for danger and point it out lovingly and truthfully. Walking in the footsteps of Christ, who was human in all things but sin, we should be willing to enter into the misery of the world and show compassion for our suffering brothers and sisters by applying the healing salve of prayer. “We are all one family. No one is okay until everyone is okay. No one can feel thoroughly grateful for their own welfare until everyone else is taken care of” (Chabad, Org).