When Someone Hurts Us: Jesus’ Path to Reconciliation

 23 Sunday or Ordinary Time, A

Jesus teaches us not to respond to hurt with gossip or retaliation, but to take courageous steps toward honest conversation and reconciliation. Sometimes we need the help of trusted people and the wider community to see a conflict clearly, because our own hurts can distort the way we understand what has happened. Reconciliation also requires humility when we are the ones who have caused harm, because the health and unity of the whole Christian community depend upon our willingness to seek peace with one another.

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In the Gospel today, Jesus speaks to us about a challenge that all of us experience, something that can be very painful and very real in our lives: what do we do when somebody hurts us? Jesus says, “If your brother or sister sins against you,” and then he lays out a kind of process for how we should respond, with the ultimate goal of reconciliation. Someone may say something about us, act in a way that harms us, or create real difficulty in our lives. The question is: what do we do next?

Jesus begins with the first step. When someone harms us, what should we do? Step one: go and gossip about that person to others. Well, no, that is not what Jesus says, although it is often what we are tempted to do. Our first response when someone hurts us can be to lash out, tell other people about it, seek comfort from others, or get people on our side. Jesus proposes a different path. He says, first, go and speak to that person in private.

Already in this first step, there is important advice. Jesus says, “If your brother or sister sins against you.” Before we even approach the person, there is an invitation to discern. Sometimes an interaction hurts us, but has the person really sinned against us? Was there perhaps a misunderstanding? Maybe I was in the wrong. Maybe my feelings were hurt because someone corrected me or told me something I did not want to hear. Jesus first invites us to stop and think: what actually happened here?

Then Christ invites us to do something that can be very brave and very difficult. Before telling everyone else, go and speak to the person. That conversation gives us the opportunity to hear their side. Maybe the way we experienced the situation was not the way they experienced it. Maybe we attributed intentions to them that were not really there. This first step requires courage, but it can prevent many conflicts from becoming much larger than they need to be.

Jesus then goes further. If we have that conversation and nothing comes of it, we move to step two. Is this now the point where we complain to everyone else and broadcast the other person’s faults? Again, not quite. Jesus says to bring one or two others with you and speak to the person again.

In our own lives, this exact form may not always be practical, but the principle is very important. It might mean speaking to someone we truly trust, someone who is not simply going to take our side immediately. That can be difficult, because when we are hurt, what we often want is someone who will confirm that we are completely right and the other person is completely wrong. But Jesus recognizes that another person may see something that we are missing.

Sometimes we have a long history with someone, and because of that history we can become blind to certain things. Another person may see the situation more clearly. They may help us understand the other person’s perspective, point out something we have overlooked, or help bring about mediation and reconciliation.

This reminds me of the classic children’s story by Hans Christian Andersen, The Emperor’s New Clothes. In the story, two swindlers come to an emperor and tell him that they can make him magnificent clothing. The catch is that anyone who is foolish or unworthy will not be able to see the clothes. In reality, of course, the swindlers make nothing at all.

The emperor cannot see the clothes, but he is too embarrassed to admit it because he does not want people to think he is foolish. So he pretends that he can see them. His officials do the same thing. Eventually, the emperor walks through the streets wearing nothing at all, and everyone continues pretending because nobody wants to be the person who admits what is really happening. Finally, a child speaks up and says the obvious: the emperor has no clothes.

Sometimes we can be a little like that emperor. Because of our hurts, our history, or the way we have come to see a situation, we may no longer see it clearly. Bringing another person into the conversation can help us recognize something we have missed. That is part of the wisdom behind this second step.

If that does not work, Jesus gives a third step: tell it to the Church. In Jesus’ time, this would have meant bringing the matter before the broader community. In our own context, with very large parishes, this can seem impractical if we imagine literally announcing every disagreement to everyone. But the deeper principle is important. Our relationships with one another do not affect only the two people involved.

St. Paul speaks beautifully about the Church as the Body of Christ. We are not simply a collection of isolated individuals. We are something organic, a community, a body. When one part of the body is wounded, the rest of the body is affected. In the same way, a serious breakdown in a relationship between two members of a community can have consequences for many others.

So bringing something to the Church is not an invitation to spread gossip or publicize another person’s faults. Rather, it recognizes that sometimes the wider community, or leaders within the community, can help people see the situation more clearly and work toward reconciliation. There may be information or perspectives that the two people involved do not have.

Finally, Jesus proposes something that sounds very severe. If the person refuses to listen even to the Church, Jesus says to treat that person as a Gentile or a tax collector. This points toward what we today would call excommunication. The word can sound very medieval, but at its root it means a breaking of communion.

Excommunication in the Church is not simply about shunning someone or casting them aside forever. It is a very serious step, but its ultimate purpose is medicinal. It is intended to help the person recognize the seriousness of what is happening and, hopefully, to bring about repentance, renewal, and eventual reconciliation.

St. Paul speaks about something similar in 1 Corinthians 5. Someone in the community is acting in a way that is seriously harmful, and even after correction the person does not change. Paul tells the community that the person must be separated from them for a time, but the goal is ultimately that the person will come to their senses and return.

Pope Francis gave a very striking modern example of this. Some years ago, while visiting southern Italy, where organized crime has had a strong influence, he spoke very forcefully about the Mafia. Organized crime can infiltrate communities, including Church communities, through money, intimidation, and violence. Pope Francis said plainly that those who follow the path of the Mafia are not in communion with God. He called them excommunicated and warned them to repent.

Those are very strong words, but the situation was also extremely serious. Even there, however, the goal was not simply condemnation. It was a call to conversion. The purpose of recognizing that communion has been broken is ultimately to invite the person back into communion through repentance and reconciliation.

When we look at all these steps that Jesus gives us, they are not easy. Sometimes we may not be able to follow the whole process exactly as it is described. Sometimes we may make every effort toward reconciliation and discover that the other person is not ready. Reconciliation requires two people, and we cannot force another person to respond.

But Jesus makes something very clear: reconciliation matters. When a relationship breaks down, we should try to repair it. We should resist the temptation simply to gossip, retaliate, or allow resentment to grow. We should ask God for the courage to take a step toward the other person.

There is also another side to this Gospel that we should reflect on. Usually, when we hear Jesus say, “If your brother or sister sins against you,” we naturally imagine ourselves as the one who has been hurt. But what happens when the shoe is on the other foot? What happens when someone comes to us because we have hurt them? Do we have the humility to listen? Do we have the grace to admit that we were wrong, to apologize, and to seek reconciliation?

Ultimately, reconciliation is so important because we are the Church. We are a community. As St. Paul teaches us, when one part of the body suffers, the whole body is affected. We want to be a healthy community, a community marked by joy, peace, and unity, so that together we can continue the mission God has entrusted to us.

Let us pray today, therefore, for a deeper awareness of how important reconciliation is, and for the courage and humility to live it out in our own relationships.

Turning Our Crosses into Crucifixes: How Christ Transforms Suffering

 22 Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

Suffering is a reality that none of us can completely avoid, but Christ shows us that it does not have to remain meaningless or destructive. When suffering is joined to love and to the presence of Jesus, it can be transformed and begin to bear life. We are invited to name the crosses we carry and turn them into crucifixes by allowing Christ to enter them and walk with us.

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If you ever look at an information sheet or display about different religions, whether in an airport or some other public place, each religion usually has a symbol associated with it. For the Jewish tradition, we often see the Star of David. For Christianity, the symbol is usually the cross. Today’s Gospel speaks about the cross, which has become this great symbol and theme of our faith. Yet when we look back to the earliest centuries of the Church, the cross was not actually the most common Christian symbol.

When I was a kid, I had the opportunity to visit the catacombs in Rome. Much of the soil around Rome is volcanic, so it can be dug through relatively easily, and once exposed to the air it hardens almost like concrete. Christians buried their dead in these underground tombs and also gathered there to pray, especially during times of persecution. What fascinated me was seeing the different symbols carved into the stone or placed on marble plaques. You see the fish everywhere. Fish in Greek is ichthys, and the letters of that word could be used as an acronym for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. It became something like a secret Christian symbol. You also find bread or sheaves of wheat, symbols connected with the Eucharist.

But one symbol you generally do not find in those early catacombs is the cross. The reason is understandable. The catacombs were used during the centuries before Constantine, when Christians were still being persecuted and crucifixion was still a real form of execution. Early Christians knew very vividly what a cross meant. It was an instrument of torture, suffering, and death. They understood clearly that the cross represented suffering, especially suffering that we do not choose and cannot simply escape.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus confronts this mystery of suffering. He tells us that if we want to follow him and be his disciples, we must take up our cross and follow him. The mystery of suffering and pain is universal, and every philosophy and religion has tried in some way to answer the question of what we are supposed to do with it.

At the time of Jesus, one important philosophical movement was hedonism. As a philosophy, hedonism taught that pleasure is good, pain is bad, and the purpose of life is therefore to seek pleasure and avoid suffering as much as possible. Another important movement was Stoicism. The Stoics recognized that avoiding all suffering is unrealistic. Everyone suffers. What matters is how we deal with it. Their response was to accept the suffering that cannot be changed and endure it with discipline. There is something admirable in that, but suffering is still treated basically as a necessary evil. It is endured, but it does not become something fruitful.

In the Old Testament, the Scriptures of Jesus, we also find different attempts to understand suffering. Some texts connect suffering with punishment for sin. Yet other parts of Scripture challenge that idea. The Book of Job gives us the story of a righteous man who has done nothing deserving of his suffering, and yet he suffers tremendously. Scripture itself therefore recognizes that suffering cannot simply be explained as punishment for bad behaviour.

Jesus gives us something different. The Gospel today comes immediately after the passage we heard last week, and the change is almost like whiplash. Peter had been put on a pedestal. He recognized Jesus as the Christ, and Jesus told him, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.” He was given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. But now Peter has completely misunderstood what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah. Jesus explains that suffering will be part of his own mission. He will suffer and die. He will take upon himself the violence and evil of the world and transform it.

Jesus then teaches us that if we want to be his disciples, we cannot simply leave our crosses behind, ignore our suffering, or pretend that it is not there. When we accept our suffering with him, it can be transformed. Suffering by itself can be deeply harmful. If suffering is combined with isolation, bitterness, or resentment, it can grow inside us and spoil our hearts. But when suffering is joined to love, when it is carried with Christ and within community, it can become something different. It remains painful, but it can become life-giving.

We can think of the analogy of pruning. A knife can obviously cause harm. Yet in the hands of someone who knows how to prune a tree or plant properly, that same sharp instrument can help the plant grow more strongly and bear more fruit. Something similar can happen with suffering in our lives. When we carry it with Jesus, when we allow him to walk beside us, and when we endure it out of love for God and for others, suffering can begin to bear fruit.

All of us carry suffering of one kind or another, and Jesus does not ask us to ignore it. During this Mass, it might be important simply to name that suffering in our own hearts. What is the cross that I am carrying today? It might be a health problem that we are facing, or the illness of a family member or friend. It may be a challenge at work, difficulty finding employment, or the stress of going through an immigration process. It might be pain within a relationship that is breaking down even though we are trying hard to repair it. We all carry crosses, and Jesus invites us first to recognize that they are there.

Then we can ask a second question: what love can I bring into this suffering? If the cross involves work or financial difficulties, perhaps we continue out of love for our family or community. If we are struggling to heal a damaged relationship, perhaps the difficult work we do is offered out of love for the other person. Christ teaches us that suffering cannot always be avoided, but it can be joined to love, and when that happens it can be transformed.

I remember once hearing a priest say that we need to turn our crosses into crucifixes. I was struck by that expression. A cross by itself is simply two pieces of wood. Historically, it was an instrument of torture and execution. But a crucifix has Jesus upon it. To turn our cross into a crucifix means that we invite Jesus into our suffering. We allow him to be there with us, to walk with us, and to help us carry what we cannot carry alone. When Christ enters our suffering, it can become joined to his love and begin to bear life.

Today, then, let us recognize the crosses we carry and surrender them to the Lord. Let us ask for the grace not simply to endure them alone, but to bring Christ into them. May he help us transform our crosses into crucifixes, so that even our suffering, when joined to love, can become a source of life for us and for those around us.

Peter the Rock - Faithful even in failure

 21 Sunday in OT

Peter is called the rock because of his strong faith, but his story also shows that he was capable of misunderstanding Jesus and failing badly. What made Peter a foundation for others was not perfection, but his willingness to return to Christ, continue following him, and carry out the mission he had been given. Like Peter, each of us is called through baptism to use our gifts and persevere in helping to build up the Church.

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This is an important Gospel for us here at St. Peter’s Parish because our patron, St. Peter, is featured so heavily in the story. As most of you know by now, I was raised in this parish and baptized here, so St. Peter has always held a special place for me. In particular, this story, this interaction that Jesus has with Peter, has always stood out to me. At the end of the exchange, Jesus gives Peter this name: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.” The name is a play on his Aramaic name, Kephas, which means rock, but it is also clearly symbolic. Peter is being called the rock, and I would like to reflect a little on what that might mean for Peter and also for us.

First and foremost, Peter is called a rock because of his strong faith. He becomes, as it were, a source of strength and unity among the followers of Jesus. In the Gospel today, Jesus is in Caesarea Philippi, which is in the north of the Holy Land. It was an interesting city because it was largely Gentile, and it was also a famous pilgrimage site connected with the worship of the god Pan. Pan is often shown with the lower body of a goat and carrying a flute, and he was associated with the wild. So it is there, in the shadow of a place where people worshipped other gods, that Jesus asks his disciples this important question: “Who do you say that I am?” He hears different responses. Some say John the Baptist, some say one of the prophets, but Peter is the one who has the faith to declare that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Even though Jesus’ mission is still unfolding, Peter has this insight. He understands that Jesus is not simply another prophet or religious teacher, but that he is the long-awaited Messiah and the Son of God. Because of this faith, Jesus calls Peter the rock.

More than this, Jesus entrusts Peter with a particular role by giving him the keys. I remember those keys very clearly from growing up here at St. Peter’s. Back in the olden days, before the addition of the present offices, there was a grassy space out along Fourth Street. When I would altar serve, we would walk around the back of the church, and there was a large statue there of St. Peter holding the keys. You can still see that statue today, just outside our office space. So from when I was young, I always associated Peter with these keys. To understand what they mean, we need to look at the first reading. There we hear about Eliakim, who is not the king but is given a key. The key symbolizes authority that has been delegated to him by the king. He is there as a steward, someone who stands in the place of the king and exercises authority on his behalf. This helps us understand the role given to Peter. By receiving the keys, Peter is entrusted with a particular authority from Jesus. Jesus, of course, remains the true foundation of the Church, but he gives different gifts and different missions to his followers, and Peter is given this particular mission of serving the unity and stability of the Church. As Catholics, we believe that this ministry continues in the successors of Peter, the popes. This is why we speak of the pope as the Vicar of Christ. He does not replace Jesus, but he is entrusted with a particular responsibility to represent Christ and to serve the Church.

So Peter is a rock because of his strong faith, but there is another side to Peter’s personality, and another way we could perhaps call him a rock. I want to be polite here, of course, since we are in church, but sometimes Peter can also be a bit of a rock because he is a little dense, a little slow to understand. We see this immediately after the Gospel passage we have just heard. If you were to open your Bible and read only a few verses further, Jesus begins to explain what being the Messiah will actually mean. He says that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer, be killed, and rise again. Peter, who has just been called the rock and given the keys, takes Jesus aside and basically says, “No, no, Jesus. There must be some misunderstanding. This cannot happen to you.” Peter understands that Jesus is the Messiah, but he does not yet understand what kind of Messiah he is. He cannot yet accept that Jesus will be a suffering Messiah. Jesus responds very strongly and says, “Get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me.” So within only a few verses, Peter goes from being the rock on which Jesus will build his Church to being called a stumbling block.

We see this pattern throughout Peter’s life, and as the years advance in my own life, this is actually a part of Peter that I have come to appreciate more and more. Peter makes mistakes time and time again, but he keeps following Jesus. He misunderstands what Jesus is saying. He says the wrong thing. Later, during the Passion, he will deny three times that he even knows Jesus. Jesus had warned him that before the rooster crowed, Peter would deny him three times. This moment became so closely associated with Peter that, especially in parts of Europe, you can still see roosters on top of church towers and weather vanes. The rooster can have several meanings, but one of them is this reminder of Peter’s denial. The Church does not try to gloss over Peter’s failure. It is right there in the Gospel. Peter had great strengths, but he also had very real weaknesses. He fell badly, but the important thing is that he continued. He returned to Christ, he kept following him, and he continued to carry out the mission that Jesus had entrusted to him.

This gives us a third way of thinking about Peter as a rock. Because Peter continued to follow Jesus, even after his failures, he became a kind of foundation stone for others. Through his faith, his preaching, his leadership, and ultimately his martyrdom, Peter helped to build up the early Church and to lay a foundation for those who would come after him. We see this represented in a very physical and beautiful way at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The first basilica there was built by Constantine in the fourth century over the place that Christians had long venerated as the burial place of Peter. The tradition was always that Peter’s tomb lay beneath the high altar, but for centuries the burial place itself was not visible. Then, beginning in 1939, archaeological excavations were carried out beneath the basilica. The excavators discovered an ancient Roman necropolis and, directly beneath the high altar, the area that early Christians had venerated as Peter’s tomb. There is something very moving about that. St. Peter’s Basilica is, of course, a church dedicated ultimately to the worship of Jesus Christ. Christ remains the centre. Yet beneath the basilica lies the burial place of this disciple who followed Jesus. Peter is literally beneath the church. People walk above him, and in a beautiful way that is exactly what his life became. He played his part. He used the gifts Christ had given him, and through his faith, his failures, and his perseverance, he helped build up the Church so that others could come after him.

Peter, then, is a rock in several ways. He is a rock because of his strong faith. He is also a very human rock, sometimes slow to understand and capable of serious failure. But perhaps most importantly for us, he is a rock because he never stopped returning to Christ. He continued to follow Jesus, and because he did, his life became a foundation on which others could build. The same is true for us. St. Paul frequently describes the Church as a building, and Christians as the living stones from which that building is constructed. You can imagine any wall made from stone. When one stone is missing, something is lacking. The wall is not as strong or as complete as it could be. Each one of us has a role to play in building up the Church, the Body of Christ, and our own community here at St. Peter’s.

We do not have to be perfect in order to do that. Peter certainly was not. We will misunderstand things, we will make mistakes, and we will fall at times, but like Peter, we are called to return to Christ, to continue following him, and to keep using whatever gifts God has given us. Today, then, let us pray for the intercession of our patron, St. Peter, the rock upon whom Christ chose to build his Church. Let us also remember that through our baptism we too are called to play our part in building up the Church. May St. Peter help us to have the faith to keep following Christ, the humility to return when we fall, and the courage to use our gifts so that we too can help build up the Church for those who will come after us.