Correcting the Sinner
You are a member of a small Catholic parish and are facing the following issues: (1) You serve on the liturgy committee and are becoming increasingly concerned with the way another member publicly criticizes the deacon about his preaching; (2) at Mass, you are frequently distracted by the poor quality of the flowers on the altar since Jane was put in charge of church ambience; (3) during the coffee hour, you sense that the choir director is becoming too familiar with the newly ordained priest recently assigned to the parish. What do you do?
Consult a doctor! Only, in this case, I do not mean a medical doctor, or even a doctor of theology. I have in mind a doctor of the Church. I have in mind St. Thérèse of Lisieux, declared a doctor of the Universal Church in the fall of 1997. St. Thérèse, the Little Flower, at one point in her life faced the same difficult issue we all face: how to correct the sinner? How to faithfully apply what Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone” (Matt 18:15). The way St. Thérèse applied this evangelical counsel can be helpful to each of us.
In his biography of St. Thérèse, The Story of a Life: St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Guy Gaucher, OCD, describes a difficult challenge Thérèse faced in her relationship with one of the members of her Carmelite community. For some time she had been concerned about Sister Marthe’s “inordinate attachment” to Mother Marie de Gonzague. At the risk of being betrayed, and even causing a conflict that might result in her being sent to another monastery, Thérèse, at the age of twenty, determined it was her duty to speak and not worry about the consequences. Her journal entries record that with great affection she counseled her fellow sister that it was the sacrifice of one’s self, not attachment, that was needed. And it worked. Her biographer records that the “sisterly correction bore immediate fruit. Sister Marthe understood perfectly and would never forget that day of inner liberation.”
The example given by St. Thérèse is instructive for all of us here at St. Joseph Parish. We too encounter situations which we know call out for application of the evangelical counsel in today’s Gospel. Unfortunately, we often fail to heed the advice Jesus gave his disciples. Our tendency is to do one of two things: (1) Do nothing, other than brood over the problem in secret, or (2) jump to the last option suggested by Jesus, that is, declaring the person, privately or publicly, the modern day equivalent of a “Gentile or a tax collector.” Rather than approaching the offending person privately and with great affection, we default to an approach unlikely to produce a graced solution. The result is either an ongoing source of irritation or alienation from someone we are called to love as we do our own self.
Admittedly, our parish is far different from a Carmelite convent in nineteenth-century France, and none of us is a St. Thérèse. Still, we have something to learn from the doctor. First, her biographer mentions that she acted only after months of “patience and prayer.” It takes patience to bear with someone who is annoying us but, unless we practice patience, we may not discern the approach demanded by the situation. Perhaps our perception of the other’s behavior is skewed, perhaps we need more information or we need to step back for a minute. And certainly the evangelical counsel cannot be carried out well if we have not brought the problem into our prayer. Only when these two elements—patience and prayer—are operative can we expect to produce good fruit by our action.
It requires discipline to faithfully apply the mode of problem solving directed by today’s Gospel, and demonstrated by St. Thérèse, because we are deeply conditioned culturally to approach problem solving in ways that are radically different from the Gospel ideal. One respected study of American culture identities individualism as the main characteristic of our American culture. While this aspect of our culture has produced tremendous freedom and innovation, its dark side is a tendency toward isolation, the opposite of a loving community. Thus, we are prone to passivity in approaching community problems, provided they do not directly affect us. The Gospel directive challenges us to take responsibility for our neighbor in a loving manner.
At the other extreme is an aggressive approach to problem solving that also misses the mark set by the Gospel. You do not have to listen to many radio talk-show hosts, or be around many lawyers, to know what I mean. We are a society prone to aggressive, confrontational, litigious problem solving. Nowhere is this more painfully apparent than in our own Church and the sexual-abuse scandal that has plagued us. I am not suggesting that cases of sexual misconduct should not be confronted; I am saying that we all have to ask whether the evangelical counsel in today’s Gospel could have been applied more faithfully at times.
Jesus certainly would have agreed with the prophet Ezekiel that we have a duty “to dissuade the wicked from his ways.” He also would have agreed with Paul that the commandments are summed up in “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But he also would have insisted that we can best put these sayings into practice by following the counsel he himself left us in today’s Gospel. Go and live it!
Questions for Further Discussion:
1. Have you had to correct someone within the context of church? How did you go about it?
2. Have you acquired skills for problem solving from your education or work that would be useful in a church context?
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