23rd Sunday Ordinary Time, Year A

"If he listens to you, you have won your brother over."

Lectionary Readings for the 23rd Sunday Ordinary Time, Year A
http://catholic.pcentral-online.net/lectionary/23rd-sunday-a.html

We often experience people correcting us or we ourselves correcting others. It could be actualized or done sometimes in our thoughts and hearts through prayer. Whatever be the way we correct others, most of the time, the reaction of the one corrected is, "who is he to say that to me?". This reaction is one of pride. It is very rare for people to accept correction because humility is very rare. It is a very important virtue but one people do not really seek for. For it is in humility (how we see ourselves before God), that we discover what is the reason for the correction.

Jesus tells us that if we see a fault in our brother and go point it out to him, it should be done amongst ourselves alone. Only when our brother refuses correction do we appeal to a third party so that there may be witnesses in the case. At this level, the "legal" situation is somewhat serious. However, if the correction is only something personal and does not really involve anything serious, we can easily appeal to God to grant us the humility to receive the correction or we can pray to God that the person we corrected will also appeal to God to grant him the gift of humility. If however, the case involves more than just the personal level, then this is something that can be taken to others. In law, it means "appealing to a higher court".

Correction is good because it helps us in our pathway to God. If we do not correct others, we will be not doing our Christian responsibility of leading others to God. On the other hand, if we ourselves do not accept correction, then our pathway to God will be blocked and we will never grow in our relationship towards Him.

Let us pray that we Christians will always pray for the gift of humility before the Lord because it is this virtue that will help us correct our brother in the right way and for ourselves to accept correction in the right way. The pathway to humility is not easy but it is made available to us through the example of Christ himself who sought more to serve than to be served. Let us always have an attitude of a servant-leader who leads others by example to serve their brothers and sisters by teaching them that the pathway to God, the pathway to Jesus, the pathway to the eternal life promised to us, is through humility and service.