THE ROLE OF A WATCHMAN

SUNDAY, TWENTY THIRD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Ezek 33:7-9; Ps 95:1-2,6-9; Rom 13:8-10; Mt 18:15-20

Our Love for Neighbour

Our Lord teaches us in the scriptures that the greatest of all the Commandments is to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength. Since the first object of our love conditions our whole love, life, and behaviour, it follows that our love for God is supposed to direct the whole of our Christian life and doings. Furthermore, since love makes the beloved live in the lover, we can actually say that God lives and acts through a Christian who has matured in the precept of love. Again, since the love of God is the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, this implies that the Holy Spirit dwells more and becomes more active in our lives as we grow in our Christian or spiritual life. Based on this, we have understood our spiritual life as a progressive interior walk into the mysteries of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. It is true to say that God lives in us through the Holy Spirit and carries out his divine will as we grow in Christian perfection. We have also understood that a Christian grows into Jesus Christ as he journeys deeper into the mysteries of our salvation. The knowledge of God is Jesus Christ, as the love of God is the Holy Spirit. So, as our minds are transformed into Christ's, our hearts are also inflamed with the love of God by the Holy Spirit.

We consider the above the basis for a clear understanding of the second most important Commandment; namely, to love our neighbours as ourselves. Our love for our neighbours is the outflow of our love for God. Put differently, our love for others ought to bear the same feature and intensity of God’s love for them. Hence, the precept of the love of neighbour follows immediately on the precept of love for God. This is why Saint Paul considers it a debt we must pay to our neighbour daily. We are bound to love God as Christians, for that is the fount of our Christian life; the river of love which wells up within us from God must not be stagnant but allowed to flow out to water the lives of our neighbours. “Avoid getting into debt, except the debt of mutual love. If you love your fellow men, you have carried out your obligations.” As long as we receive the love of God, which is poured into our hearts daily, we must discharge our duty of loving our neighbours. It implies that we cannot complain of being scarce in the resource of love, for it is daily poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Recall that our love for God is only a response to his love that comes first. We can only be without the resource of love when we fail to open our hearts to God in loving prayer and adoration daily.

Our response to God’s daily invitation to prayerful communion is what constitutes us as watchmen for God. When we have communion with God in prayer, we receive his light and love. He subsequently moves us to enlighten and love our neighbours with what we have received from him. This is the message of the prophet Ezekiel to us. “Son of man, I have appointed you as sentry to the House of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, warn them in my name.” Because the word of God is life and light for all, our receiving and not communicating it through words and actions puts us in bad light and makes us liable to God’s judgment. “If I say to a wicked man: Wicked wretch, you are to die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked man to renounce his ways, then he shall die for his sin, but I will hold you responsible for his death.” This helps us to understand that our Christian life is not our own, but God’s. He has redeemed us from our slavery to sin and evil that we may now live to sing his wonderful praises to all peoples and nations. To live as a channel of God’s light and love is the only way to be saved. “If, however, you do warn a wicked man to renounce his ways and repent, and he does not repent, then he shall die for his sin, but you yourself will have saved your life.”

Understanding this divine role we are to play makes us attentive to God daily. Our lack of attention would mean the loss of souls. The psalmist sounds this warning to us. “O that today you would listen to his voice! Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as on that day at Massah in the desert when your fathers put me to the test; when they tried me, though they saw my work.” The Gospel spells out this teaching in practical terms for us. Our Lord teaches us what our love for a neighbour implies. “If your brother does something wrong, go and have it out with him alone, between your two selves. If he listens to you, you have won back your brother.” Notice that we are to prompt the reconciliation as God does to us. We actually follow his prompt in this case. God works through us to bring back the erring brother/sister. “If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you.” These multiple love interventions would touch the erring soul. He or she would definitely not be deaf to the community. “But if he refuses to listen to these, report it to the community; and if he refuses to listen to the community, treat him like a pagan or a tax collector.”

We treat the person who refuses to listen to the community as a pagan because a refusal to listen to the community, representing the heavenly communion, means a definite rejection of God’s loving mercy and pardon. Such a person is an unbeliever, and a subject of fresh evangelisation, because he has forgotten the blood of the Lamb that was shed to purchase him. The whole action belongs to God. We are only required to cooperate with God in bringing souls to the communion of eternal life. We must always remember that the cooperation starts with prayer. Thus, the psalmist invites us to prayer. “Come, ring out our joy to the Lord; hail the rock who saves us. Let us come before him, giving thanks, with songs let us hail the Lord.”  

Let us pray: O God, by whom we are redeemed and receive adoption, look graciously upon your beloved sons and daughters, that those who believe in Christ may receive true freedom and an everlasting inheritance. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.