23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
First Reading: Ez 33:7-9
Second Reading: Rom 13:8-10
Gospel Reading: Mt 18:15-20
Think of some truth about which you are absolutely sure. It might be that the brakes on your car are faulty, that tobacco and other drugs harm the body, or that nutritious food and regular exercise are beneficial.
Now suppose you see someone acting, or about to act, in ignorance of this truth. Can you keep silent? If you say nothing, and the ignorance causes harm, are you not to blame for it, at least partly?
Imagine the reproaches. “You knew that the brakes were faulty, and you let me drive the car!” “You knew that drugs were addictive and harmful, and you let me experiment with them!” “You knew the importance of nutrition and exercise, and you brought me up to laze around and eat junk food!”
With this in mind, consider this Sunday’s Readings. If “you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand,” God tells Ezekiel.
“If your brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone,” Jesus says. “If you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you.”
He is speaking to us. Our duty to warn our neighbours about sin is part of the love we owe them.
Can we be as sure about right and wrong as we are about the truth of the examples we started with?
Yes. From the beginning, God wrote, deep in our conscience, in our “most secret core,” a law which calls us to love him and our neighbour for his sake: that is, to obey the Commandments. Inwardly, at the right moment, the law tells us to do this or shun that.
Our conscience can be “by degrees almost blinded” through sinful habits. However, God has not only implanted his law in our hearts, but also reminds us of it: first through the Ten Commandments and second through the Church.
Jesus gave his apostles the task of “promoting and preserving the faith and the moral life,” and their successors continue this task, Pope St. John Paul II said in his encyclical Veritatis Splendor (“The Splendour of Truth”). The Church, then, is “the pillar and bulwark of the truth, including the truth regarding moral action.”
However, all Christians, “by the example of their lives and the witness of their word,” have an obligation “to manifest the new man which they have put on in Baptism and to reveal the power of the Holy Spirit by whom they were strengthened at Confirmation,” says Ad Gentes (“To the Nations”).
“Whoever acknowledges me before men I will acknowledge before my Father in Heaven,” Christ warned. “Whoever disowns me before men I will disown before my Father in Heaven.”
“If anyone in this faithless and corrupt age is ashamed of me and my doctrine, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes with the holy angels in his Father’s glory.”
“Be not afraid,” Pope John Paul said at the start of his papacy.
We believe in God because this is the truth; atheism is not a reasonable alternative. We belong to the Catholic Church because this is the Church God the Son founded; she alone has the fullness of the truth that God has revealed to humans.
We should say it with love, but without apology, for our witness “makes an extraordinarily valuable contribution” to society, Pope John Paul said: it helps to ward off “a headlong plunge into the most dangerous crisis” that can afflict the world: namely a “confusion between good and evil.”
If we live what we believe, we are public benefactors: “the salt of the earth,” “the light of the world.” We must let our light “shine before men” so that they may see goodness in our acts and praise God.
Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English, with new insights. The whole course is available in written form and, one session per week, in YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Father is also teaching the course in person: on Sundays at 2:00 pm in the John Paul II Pastoral Centre, 4885 St John Paul II Way, Vancouver (33rd and Willow); and on Mondays at 10:00 am in St. Anthony’s Church hall, 2347 Inglewood Avenue, West Vancouver. The title of next week’s talk is “Creation and the Fall.” No pre-registration is necessary.
