Following is the prepared text from Bishop Olmsted’s homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

September 6, 2020

To understand what Jesus says in today’s Gospel, we need to remember that God created us for relationships. “It is not good for man to be alone,” He said. He made us to love and to be loved; that is, He created us in His own image and likeness, which is a Trinity of Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, eternally three Persons yet One God.

When disunity and division entered the world through the deception of the devil, this was contrary to God’s plan. So, Jesus came into the world to reconcile us with the Father and with one another. We need to keep this in mind today as Jesus speaks about what to do when your brother sins against you. He tells us to spare no effort to set things right and to restore the broken relationship caused by our brother. Even if we are tempted to say, “But he’s the one who sinned. Let him take the first step,” Jesus wants no such excuses among His disciples.

He calls whoever is offended to act first, and not wait for the offender to do so: “Go and tell him his fault,” Jesus says, “between you and him alone.” If your brother listens, harmony has been restored. But if he does not listen, Jesus tells us to make still greater efforts, taking one or two others along to help our brother see and have a change of heart. If still unsuccessful, don’t give up; we are to engage the larger community. If still another step is needed, then, He says, “Treat the brother like a tax collector or sinner.” Even that action aims at reconciling our brother. Recall Jesus was not ashamed to be called a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

To explore Jesus’ teaching in greater depth, let’s look more closely at three words He employed: “brother,” “if,” and “agree.”

First, brother. Jesus does not say, “If your enemy or your opponent sins against you,” or even “if your colleague or business partner.” Rather, He says “your brother” to remind us of the family bond that unites members of the Church. Jesus told us to call God Father and to pray, “…forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

We need to keep in mind who we are, beloved sons and daughters of the Father, brothers and sisters in His Church; the family of God reborn through Baptism, to whom St. Paul says (Rom 13:8), “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.” Not only does God free us from the slavery of sin, He gives us the grace to forgive and to correct one another, remembering that we are our brother’s keeper.

It is helpful to note that, in today’s Gospel, Jesus uses the word “if” nine times: “If your brother does something wrong… If he listens… If he does not listen…” This recurring use of “if” shows how greatly Jesus desires that we not give up hope in reaching out to our brother, adapting to every possible situation. All these “ifs” show us how intent the Lord is to save the lost, and to do so through us who make up His Body, the Church.

Pope Francis, in a Wednesday Audience talk in Rome, said, “We must always be ready to welcome back the lost.” Then, suddenly he stopped himself and said,

“No, I am wrong, I should have said: we must always be ready to do more that welcome back; we must go in search of the lost, searching until we find them. We can’t just wait for them to return.”

Jesus chose not to save the world without us. He could have done so but He knows that the best way for you and me to grow in love is to do the difficult work of both encouraging and correcting each other. To be brothers and sisters to one another is His idea, not ours! We have this blessing and duty by Baptism; St. John writes in his First Letter (1 Jn 4:20), “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar.” Even worse than hating is being indifferent to our brother, failing to try to correct him. The opposite of love is not to say, “I hate you,” but to say, “I don’t care.” True love makes the effort needed to correct my brother when he sins.

No friendship, no marriage can last without fraternal correction and mutual forgiveness. No community can long exist unless the members have the courage to speak the truth in love and the desire to love and forgive one another.

Another word of today’s Gospel deserves further reflection: the word “agree.” “If two of you agree… about anything for which you are to pray, it shall be granted to you by my heavenly Father.” To “agree” on what to pray for assures that our prayers will be heard. This is why prayer as a family is so powerful, and why prayers with a friend or companion surpasses that of individual prayer.

Our prayers have great power when our voices and our hearts resound in harmony, when we have done the hard work of correcting and supporting one another. Only Christ can bring about such harmony, and He does so most willingly when you and I do our part to overcome division and discord. This harmony between friends and parishioners, between husbands and wives, has the enduring grace to last forever; but not without daily readiness to forgive and seek forgiveness. Harmony is not something we achieve once and for all. Just as a symphony orchestra needs rehearsals, so too friendship and family. Every marriage that “God has joined” needs to be fine-tuned; its harmony needs at times to be restored, and this happens with the help of God. How true “The family that prays together stays together.”

To be a channel of God’s peace for our brother or friend who has done wrong, we must first unite ourselves with God’s mercy, and then speak only to win him back, not to win an argument, not to pay back a grudge, not to vent our anger. The whole purpose is to help our brother to be one with us again in the rich mercy of God. Shortly after his election, Pope Francis was asked how he saw himself. He answered,

“I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner…on whom the Lord has turned His gaze.”

We all need to offer fraternal correction and to receive it. We can do so because Jesus has first turned His loving gaze on us.