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Greetings and welcome back to my podcast.
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Well where I am, spring has certainly come.
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The ornamental pear trees and apple trees are certainly in bloom and the weather's a bit warmer.
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So if you're in the southern hemisphere, I hope your springtime is glorious.
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If you happen to be in the northern hemisphere, well I hope the heat of summer is declining and the first touches of autumn are coming.
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Often when we come to Mass, I'm not sure whether we do it deliberately, but we overlook the collect of the Mass, which is the prayer the priest says after the Gloria, and often there are hidden gems in that.
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The one for this Sunday, the twenty third Sunday in ordinary time, reminds us that God has redeemed us and adopted us as his sons and daughters, and he wishes to give us even more than that.
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He wishes to give us true freedom, not the freedom of willful and selfish choices that may please us, but the freedom that is oriented to the everlasting inheritance of heaven.
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There are many guides along this way to true freedom in this life, and forever in heaven.
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One is the moral teaching handed down to us, because it directs us to the complete good, who is God Himself.
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The moral teaching of the Church provides us with the boundaries and the guardrails which keep us, if you like, on track.
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Even before Christ was born, Moses and the prophets were the moral teachers, the watchmen of the chosen people, as Ezekiel puts it in the first reading.
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Today the legitimate pastors of the church are our moral teachers.
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These watchmen today are the Pope and the bishops united to him, and those pastors under their authority.
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So the church has ever been faithful in teaching the moral law.
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God also appoints each of us watchmen in a sense over some others to teach and correct, like parents over their children.
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If we fail to do so we commit a sin of omission, that is failing to do the good we should do.
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A consequence of having a moral law is the duty of the watchman to correct and to warn.
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And both correcting and warning have one aim to turn somebody on the right track to turn a sinner from his otherwise impending destruction.
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Those in authority in the church, the hierarchy, have the right and duty to correct members of the faithful who stray.
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They can even excommunicate members who seriously deny Catholic faith or morals.
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Procedures for this are spelt out in the code of canon law for the church, and the various constitutions of religious orders for their members.
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The lay members of the faithful can also prudently correct others.
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This is what is called fraternal correction.
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It is the spiritual work of mercy of admonishing the sinner.
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It's basically what the Lord says in this Sunday's gospel, that first have it out with him alone between your two selves when there is a disagreement.
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To avoid being a busybody, the person should be someone we have some responsibility to talk to, for example, a member of the family, person we work with or a friend.
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Fraternal correction is, if you like, a loving heads up given by one Christian to his or her neighbour to help that person become holy.
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If it is done in the spirit of, as St.
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Paul says in the second reading, getting into the debt of mutual love, that is, doing it out of charity, then this correction might deepen the relationship if the correction is called for and the other accepts it humbly.
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All must be done in charity, which demands attributing good will to another, and not judging another's motives or heart, which is known only to God.
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Now rash judgment can also be mentioned here in this context.
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Many Catholics think we cannot judge others, but that is the distortion that secular thinking is put on it.
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You hear don't judge me, or you can't judge me, and that's a byproduct of the false idea that there is no truth except what a person calls true.
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Notice we call it rash judgment, because rash judgment is judging or believing that another is guilty of wrong or of evil without a sufficient reason.
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So there can be a sufficient reason for thinking it, but if it has no sufficient reason, then it's rash judgment.
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A reason that is not sufficient is relying on hearsay or gossip, or doing out of jealousy of another, or doing it because you want to get even with another, or making assumptions without evidence, surmising, or presuming you know what is in someone's heart and what are their motives.
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Rash judgment is a certain decision against a particular person made without moral certainty and not and without rather great probability.
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Rash judgment is forbidden by the eighth commandment, because it unjustly harms your neighbour's good name.
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To conclude, thankfully, in whatever disruption happens in the community life of the church, as our Lord said in today's gospel, Christ never abandons his church, because where two or three meet in his name, he shall be there with them.
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Laudator Jesus Christus.