Today Jesus gives us a very difficult mission: If we see our brothers or sisters do something wrong, we have to go and reprimand their. Why do we have to do it? ...

The answer we can find in the second reading. St. Paul to Roman writes:

You must love your neighbour as yourself. Love is the one thing that cannot hurt your neighbour, that is why it is the answer to every one of the commandments

If you love someone then you want the best for him. When we see someone doing something wrong himself we cannot allow this to happen. You don’t want that this person harms to himself. Therefore we have to reprimand. Because every sin is harming himself.

Maybe this is a good occasion to say what is a sin?

When we open the Catechism of the Catholic Church we can read:

Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as "an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law."

This is a very theological definition. How are we to understand this definition? Very simple: sin destroys God’s love in our lives.

We can compare our relationship with God to the relationship of parents with children.

Parents give children rules. They say: you can’t do it or you have to do it.

WHY?

Parents love their children. They want to teach children: what is good and what is dangerous. When children don’t listen to parents then parents are very sorry. Although children destroy relationship with their parents, parents don’t stop to love their children.

The same is with us and God. God gives us rules – the God’s commandments. The commandments tell us: you can’t do it or you have to do it.

Why does God give us commandments? Because he loves us and he wants to teach us what is good and what is dangerous for us.

And when we don’t listen to God then we destroy our relationship with God, but God cannot stop to love us. And then we commit a sin because we reject God’s love.

It is worth noting that sin often seems to us something pleasant. But of course it isn’t nothing good, never.

When we realize that we committed a sin there is just one way to repair it: we must reconcile with God.

How can we do it? Only by confession.

Maybe somebody ask: Can’t I do this on my own? The answer is: no.

If we are sick or when we’ve broken an arm do we cure ourselves? No, we know we need then very good doctor. And the same is when we’ve committed sins. We need a good doctor who heals us, because every sin is sickness of our souls. The best doctor for sickness of our souls is Jesus. And we can meet with him during confession and then he can heal us.

And when we have committed mortal sin then during confession Jesus gives us again sanctifying grace, which is necessary for our salvation. And when we haven’t mortal sins then Jesus purifies our soul from venial sins, which every one of us has.

There is one beautiful comparison which explains us: what is sanctifying grace and confession.

Every baptized is linked with God by a long thread. This is sanctifying grace, friendship with God. But when we commit the sin we cut this thread. And then we lose sanctifying grace and friendship with God. But when we want be friends with God again, it is enough that we ask him. Then God binds together this thread and we regain sanctifying grace and friendship with God. This happens only during confession. But the thread will be shorter and we will be closer to God.

I think it is well to go to confession regularly. Because then we are closer and closer to God. Maybe not every day or week, but once a month or two is good practice for cultivating the love to God and to care for sanctifying grace.

Let us cultivate our love for God. But don’t forget about ours neighbours. Maybe they need our help because they lost their way in life. Let us help them. First of all help them through our prayers. But when they will need it let us help to reprimand then as Jesus teaches today. Who knows? Maybe in the future we ourselves will need the same.