On the day of 13 August
At Rome, of Saint John Berchmans, religious of the Society of Jesus, most loving to all by reason of a sincere piety, unfeigned charity, and unfailing cheerfulness, who came to his last day joyfully after a brief illness.
At Rome, of Saint John Berchmans, religious of the Society of Jesus, most loving to all by reason of a sincere piety, unfeigned charity, and unfailing cheerfulness, who came to his last day joyfully after a brief illness.
**Saint/Feast of the day segment copied from the USCCB page.
First Reading: Ezekiel 9:1-7; 10:18-22
I'm making an assumption that this is a prophetic vision, and not something that was actually happening as Ezekiel was describing it. I'm also assuming that the meaning of this is that the Israelites are about to have some really bad stuff happen to them, and the only ones that will be spared among them are the merciful. That little piece of information I stole from the footnotes: Ezekiel is pre-eminently the prophet of personal retribution; the innocent inhabitants of Jerusalem are to be spared when the idolatrous are punished. An X: literally, the Hebrew letter taw, which had the form of a cross. My question is: Which disaster was he prophesying about?
Gospel: Matthew 18:15-20
I'm just going to copy and paste two of the footnotes for this one. It reads to me like direct New Testament (are those words supposed to be capitalized?) law, so I don't want to mess it up with my uneducated opinion:
[15-20] Passing from the duty of Christian disciples toward those who have strayed from their number, the discourse now turns to how they are to deal with one who sins and yet remains within the community. First there is to be private correction (Matthew 18:15); if this is unsuccessful, further correction before two or three witnesses (Matthew 18:16); if this fails, the matter is to be brought before the assembled community (the church), and if the sinner refuses to attend to the correction of the church, he is to be expelled (Matthew 18:17). The church's judgment will be ratified in heaven, i.e., by God (Matthew 18:18). This three-step process of correction corresponds, though not exactly, to the procedure of the Qumran community; see 1QS 5:25-6:1; 6:24-7:25; CD 9:2-8. The section ends with a saying about the favorable response of God to prayer, even to that of a very small number, for Jesus is in the midst of any gathering of his disciples, however small (Matthew 18:19-20). Whether this prayer has anything to do with the preceding judgment is uncertain.
[17] The church: the second of the only two instances of this word in the gospels; see the note on Matthew 16:18. Here it refers not to the entire church of Jesus, as in Matthew 16:18, but to the local congregation. Treat him . . . a Gentile or a tax collector: just as the observant Jew avoided the company of Gentiles and tax collectors, so must the congregation of Christian disciples separate itself from the arrogantly sinful member who refuses to repent even when convicted of his sin by the whole church. Such a one is to be set outside the fellowship of the community. The harsh language about Gentile and tax collector probably reflects a stage of the Matthean church when it was principally composed of Jewish Christians. That time had long since passed, but the principle of exclusion for such a sinner remained. Paul makes a similar demand for excommunication in 1 Cor 5:1-13.
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