In the Second Reading for this Sunday we see that the commandments pertaining to our behavior toward others can be summed up in the sentence: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Romans 13:9). At first blush, such a summary might seem to give us license. After all, didn't the Beatles sing that all we need is love, while they turned away from Christian morality?
The answer is that true love conforms to God's divine law. If we truly love, we will not steal, or cheat, or betray others, or do even more heinous things. Far from giving us license do to whatever we want, true love brings us into perfect harmony with God's divine order, which then empowers us to become channels of God's love to everyone around us. The more we love with a pure heart, the more God's infinite love radiates from our very being.
As the quote from the Second Reading implies, true love also entails that we love ourselves with a healthy self-love. Catholic theology sees virtue as the Greek philosopher Aristotle described it, as the golden mean between two extremes. With regard to self-love, one extreme is complete self-absorption, with the assumption that we are the greatest thing in the world and that the whole universe revolves around us. Such arrogance locks out God's love from our lives. The other extreme is the complete lack of self-love, the attitude that we are utterly worthless, horrible to the core, and that the world would be better off without us. Such total self-loathing also locks God's love out of our lives.
Healthy self-love acknowledges our sinfulness, our brokenness, and our dependence on God, and at the same time also recognizes that God made us to be fundamentally good and that his grace can and will perfect us if we open our hearts to his love. If we do not have healthy self-love, we cannot love others in a meaningful way. If we are consumed with arrogant self-centeredness, we have no love to give to others. Likewise, if we are ruled by self-hatred, there is no love within us to share. We cannot give that which we don't have. Loving ourselves in a healthy way is a precondition for loving others genuinely. Healthy self-love starts with accepting God's love for us, opening our hearts to his infinite, eternal love, and reciprocating his love with our whole being.
In terms of our behavior toward others, the First Reading for this Sunday also implies that it is not enough for us not to act sinfully toward others. We must also do our best to influence others not to sin. Our society tends to encourage us to live a siloed existence, where we focus only on our own actions and let others do their thing, whatever that might be, as long as they don't hurt others. But if we stand idly by while others get mired in sin, we are enabling their self-destruction. Of course, we must be prudent in how we communicate the Gospel message to them. We must also be careful not to engage in hypocrisy, telling others not to do things that we are guilty of ourselves. But genuine love demands that we seek to lead others away from sinful actions.
The Gospel Reading for today gives us a model for how to deal with sinful behavior within the structure of the Church itself. The passage envisions situations in which no reconciliation can be achieved and the person in question is to be excluded from the community and is to be treated as a Gentile or a tax collector. Why are those two categories named? At the time when this passage took place, the disciples were exclusively Jewish. Only years later did Gentiles get added to their number. Jewish culture required leading a life very separate from those of the Gentiles, so treating someone as a Gentile would mean a thoroughgoing separation. With regard to tax collectors, they were Jews who collaborated with the occupying force of the Romans to raise taxes from the people, which would then be sent away to Rome to finance the workings of the Empire and the lavish lifestyle of the Roman aristocracy. As such, the tax collectors, though feared, were held in universal contempt by the rest of the Jewish people.
Thus, those who were obstinate in their sin were to be excluded from the community. However, we should remember how Jesus treated Gentiles and tax collectors. He reached out to them in love. He kept inviting them to embrace the Gospel. Therefore, even when we have to draw some firm boundaries with people, we should never cease to act with the utmost love toward them.
The Gospel passage for today also highlights the power of prayer, especially when we pray together with others. Christ reminds us that: "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20). In our highly individualistic society, we are often inclined to just do things on our own, without involving others. And it is true that prayer on our own is important; indeed, essential. However, solitary prayer is not enough. We have an innate spiritual need to gather with others to pray, as we do at Mass. In addition to weekly, and preferably more frequent, Mass attendance, we should also gather with others to pray - couples praying together, parents with their children, families altogether, friends in small or larger groups. There are so many opportunities for praying together. We receive immeasurable blessings from Christ when we do so.
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The readings for Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A are:
Ezekiel 33:7-9
Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
Romans 13:8-10
Matthew 18:15-20
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Image Credit: Christ teaching in the Temple, from Wikimedia Commons.
