Our reading this week comes from what scholars call the Ecclesiastical Discourse of Matthew’s Gospel. In it Jesus addresses internal Church issues, offering specific instructions on how to deal with unrepentant public sinners. Our Lord takes a hard stance against persistent sin and yet his words are couched in the greater context of forgiveness parables, parables which implicitly urge Christians to emulate the tenderness of God in pursuing the lost.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Davies, W. D., and Dale C. Allison Jr. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Vol. 2. International Critical Commentary. London; New York: T&T Clark International, 2004.
Keener, Craig S. The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009.
Mitch, Curtis, and Edward Sri. The Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2010.
Mass Readings Explained by Dr. Brant Pitre
REFERENCES
Matthew's Discourses: Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7); Missionary Discourse (Mt 10); Parables Discourse (Mt 13); Ecclesiastical Discourse (Mt. 18)
Deuteronomy 19:15 - "Only on the evidence of two witnesses, or of three witnesses, shall a charge be sustained"
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1445: "The words bind and loose mean: whomever you exclude from your communion, will be excluded from communion with God; whomever you receive anew into your communion, God will welcome back into his. Reconciliation with the Church is inseparable from reconciliation with God."
Letter 98 to Pope Leo the Great (Paragraph 1): "For if 'where two or three are gathered together in His name,' He has said that 'there He is in the midst of them,' must He not have been much more particularly present with 520 priests, who preferred the spread of knowledge concerning Him to their country and their ease?"
Ignatius of Antioch's Letter to the Ephesians (5.2): "Let no man be deceived: unless a man be within the sanctuary he lacks the bread of God, for if the prayer of one or two has such might, how much more has that of the bishop and of the whole Church?"