12th AUGUST. WEDNESDAY, WEEK 19

1.Deuteronomy34: 1-12

2.Matthew 18:15-20

MEDITATIONS AND REFLECTIONS

“Reconciliation and forgiveness”

In our Christians community, that which characterizes it is the awareness of Christ’s call to interdependence, to loving and being loved, to forgiving and being forgiven to serving and being served, to giving and receiving. In this sense I can do what Jesus asks of us in today’s gospel: “ If your brother sins against you go and tell his fault, between you and him alone,”( v15) and so on and so forth.

Today’s gospel too presents to us the reconciliation process Jesus suggests that involves four steps:

First is to talk over with the person who sinned against you. In other words, there should be a one on one conversation between you and the person who committed the sin against you. There should be a heart talk. It’s between you and the offender. If he is not, then do the second step.

Second is to talk it over with him in the presence of witnesses. Look for a mediator between you and the offender, a neutral person in a neutral place. If he is not amenable, then go to the third step.

Third is to bring it to the church or ask advices from priests or religious about the matter. If still he is not forgiving, then go to the fourth one.

Fourth is doing talk to him/her anymore.

But based on our experience, in the first step, there is already reconciliation already happen between the offender and the offended party. The problem is, Jesus suggests these steps, it seems that the last step is the immediate solution that we often do instead of the first step.

The experience teaches us that many times when we talk to the person who hurt us, we are liberated, the hurt becomes less painful and we begin to understand the incident in a new light.

St.Clemence of Alexandria once said: “For the sake of each of us He laid down His life, worth no less than the universe. He demands of us in return our lives for the sake of each other.” Do we have the courage to confront the person without hurting the other person?

Jesus from the gospel makes clear that none of us can belong to him independently of our brothers and sisters we live with. Some problem can be settled quickly between the individuals concerned; others are more difficult to be settled out and thus require someone outside the immediate circle to intervene in the cause of peace. Then the witness of the church is given in a community way, not on the word of a single person but on that of the “ two or three witnesses.” In this perspective Jesus wants us also to pray within the community of the church. Otherwise even our best moments can degenerate into more individualism. In contrast, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.”