Today’s readings: Ezekiel 33,7-9; Romans 13,8-10; Matthew 18,15-20.
The Church in the world is not just an institution that preaches the good news of salvation. It concretely brings salvation and is ultimately responsible for the salvation of the world and, individually, we believers, are collectively accountable for this. A first typical denial of this accountability was Cain’s “Am I my brother’s keeper?” in Genesis. To which the Scripture constantly responds in the affirmative.
Ezekiel says: “I have appointed you as sentry to the House of Israel”. And Jesus in the gospel suggests a pattern the community can follow to bring back on board those who go astray. The Church was never meant to be an introvert Church, self-referential, as Pope Francis likes to say.
If our belonging to the community of faith does not make us grow in this awareness of the other and responsibility for the other, then something is wrong in our understanding of what constitutes a community of faith. St Augustine saw from early on the role of the Church in this drama of history. In his City of God, he speaks of “the two loves that have made the two cities”.
He writes: “The love of God to the refusing of self has made the City of God; the love of self to the refusing of God has made the City of the World”. For him, the city of the world is the non-community of those who have themselves or the world as their god.
We are so concerned nowadays with safeguarding the environment and the planet we inhabit, and rightly so. Yet we need to also open our eyes to a more integral vision of how the world we live in could be a safer place for us and for the generations to come. We cannot simply be connected technologically. Deeper and more humane interrelationships can make life more livable.
Loving is an art, like music, poetry and painting. It is an expression of the beauty inside us, a beauty that needs to be cultivated because love shapes the heart, strengthens the body, and boosts life. Without love we are dead, even if we are still around. It is in the depths of the heart of each and everyone that the true work of social transformation starts.
Gandhi wrote: “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems”. There is a yearning in our souls that is a calling, a voice we cannot afford to ignore or silence in our life. We need to cultivate our interiority.
Both Ezekiel and Jesus today highlight the importance of our being accountable for the building of the human community. There can be no true worship of God whenever religion alienates us one from the other, let alone when it fosters division and conflict.
The Eucharist is central to our Christian belief because it stands for the real presence of the living Christ in the midst of his community. Yet in today’s gospel, Jesus directly links his presence to “where two or three meet in my name”. There is an intimate connection between the presence of Jesus and community. Believing in the real presence and enhancing communion go together.
It does not make sense to speak with reverence of the real presence in the Eucharist and then to show lack of reverence in the way we treat each other. Very often I ask myself: Why do we have to be so mean, why do we have to bring one another down, why go so low in attitudes and judgements? It is always a choice between what damages or uplifts our civilisation, what inflicts suffering and humiliation or what offers instead solidarity and hope. We really can make the world a better place.