Reconciliation and Fraternity!

Wednesday, April 13, 2025

Deut 34:1-12; Mt 18:15-20

Today’s Gospel highlights fraternal charity as the path to reconciliation.

By calling the one who sins against us as our ‘brother,’ Jesus already sets the tone for the kind of reflection to follow. 

In his teaching, Jesus enlightens us with ways to keep our relationships intact. 

For Jesus, the secret of reconciliation is fraternal charity. This is why he employs the term ‘brother’ twice to show that we are not called to reconcile with a stranger but our own brother/sister with whom we share our relationship, life, and faith. 

Secondly, for Jesus, the path to reconciliation is conversion. Most of our conflicts with others will be over if we start talking to them personally instead of talking about them to others because in reconciliation we are not proving others wrong but showing our relationship that is at stake. 

Thirdly, for Jesus, the goal of reconciliation is not punishment but restoration of communion. The step-by-step measure that Jesus suggests to ‘win the brother over’ is profoundly fraternal so that the outcome of such an initiative would be the continuation of the relationship and not resentment. 

Finally, it is this fraternity that should become the foundation for our spirituality. In this sense, our spirituality is a call to action in reconciliatory and relational ways. Oneness with others helps us find oneness with God. 

Let us pray that we may take the path of fraternity to achieve reconciliation. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar