In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Christ, our King.
Thy Kingdom come!
Preparatory prayer (to put me in the presence of God)
Lord, thank you for being so good. For giving me the opportunity for this moment of prayer. Help me to be attentive to the inspirations of your Holy Spirit. This day will surely be full of challenges and activities, opportunities to forgive and seek forgiveness: with your grace I will be able to live it to the fullest.
Gospel of the day (to guide your meditation)
From the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, 18:15-20
At that time Jesus said to his disciples, "If your brother sins, rebuke him alone between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have saved your brother. If he does not listen to you, call another one or two others, so that the whole matter may be confirmed by the mouth of two or three witnesses. If he does not listen to them, tell the community, and if he does not listen even to the community, consider him as a heathen or a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Truly I tell you, moreover, if two of you agree on earth to ask for anything, it will be given to them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Word of the Lord
Meditate on what God tells you in the Gospel
Our Lord tells us that “if a brother sins - that is, fails in anything moral or dignified in his behavior - rebuke him alone between the two of you. If he listens to you, you will have saved your brother”. With this the Lord is telling us that correction is a good and a service to our neighbor. But there are also rules of the game here, and we must keep them in mind in order to practice these counsels of our Lord in a Christian way. Let us look at some of them.
The first is that, before correcting our own children or our students, we must be very attentive so that we do not fail or err in the same things we correct others; and, therefore, the one who corrects -whether it is a teacher, an educator or, even more so, a parent- must do it first with the testimony of his own life and example of virtue, and then he can also do it with words and advice. Never more so than in these circumstances should we keep in mind the wise popular proverb that “words move, but example drags”. People - especially children, adolescents and young people - are more easily persuaded when they see a good example than when they hear a word of correction or a call to order.
The second rule is that, when correcting, we must be very benevolent and respectful with people, without ever humiliating or embarrassing them, much less in public. How many times a young person suffers serious psychological and emotional damage because of a wrong upbringing! And it is a fact that many men have been marked with serious complexes, never overcome, because of the humiliations and outrages they suffered in their childhood by those who exercised authority. And I am not saying that it is not necessary to correct children -dizque in order not to traumatize them, but there are ways and forms.
«The stages in this itinerary indicate the effort that the Lord asks of his community to accompany those who make mistakes, so that they do not go astray. It is necessary first of all to avoid the clamor of the chronicle and gossip in the community. This is the first thing to avoid. ‘Go, admonish him, you and he alone’. The attitude is one of delicacy, prudence, humility, attention to the one who committed a fault, avoiding words that can hurt and kill the brother. Because you know that words kill. When I speak wrongly and criticize unjustly, when I insult a brother with my tongue, this is murdering the reputation of the other. Words also kill. Come on, with this, seriously! At the same time this discretion, to speak to him alone, has the purpose of not mortifying the sinner uselessly. One speaks between the two of them, no one else listens and everything ends here. And in the light of this requirement, the series of successive interventions can also be understood, which foresees to involve some witnesses and then the community itself. The purpose is to help the person to realize what he has done, and that with his guilt he has offended not only one, but all».
(H.H. Francis, Angelus of September 7, 2014).
Dialogue with Christ
This is the most important part of your prayer, prepare yourself to talk with much love with the One who loves you.
Purpose
Propose a personal one. The one that involves the most love in response to the Beloved... or, if you believe that this is what God is asking of you, live what is suggested below.
To cultivate a contemplative, simple and joyful soul in order to be an instrument of peace.
Farewell
Christ, our King!
Thy Kingdom come!
Most prudent Virgin, Mary, Mother of the Church.
Pray for us.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
