23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2026 - "If your brother sins against you..."

 

A number of years ago, a television show premiered on the Arts & Entertainment network called “Intervention”. I haven’t watched it in years, but I guess the show is in its 25th season.  The show follows one or two participants who are abusing or severely addicted to drugs or alcohol. Relatives and friends of the addict are interviewed, who detail the effects the addiction has had on the family—the sadness, the grief, the lies that often accompany addiction. And they share their concern for the harm the addict is doing to themselves and the family.

A trained intervention specialist then prepares the family for staging an intervention, in which the family and friends gently confront the addict about their addiction. At the intervention, the addict is given a choice: enter a rehabilitation program or risk losing contact and financial assistance from their relatives. From what I’ve read, the show has had tremendous success in getting help for addicts and their families.

I’ve had some personal experience with intervention: In seminary, I volunteered at a drug and alcohol treatment facility for teenagers, and I would participate in group family counseling sessions, in which parents and relatives would gather, in a very gentle setting. And they would share with their teenager how the addiction has brought harm to the them and the family life.

Most priests are not trained intervention specialists or drug counselors, but for families facing these issues, the Church can help connect your family with those with this expertise. Please call me if I can be of any assistance in this matter.

This method of loving confrontation is biblical. As we heard today, If your brother falls into sin, try to help them, confront them. If they don’t listen to you, bring another with you. A family effort is often needed in helping someone who has fallen into sin, addiction, or unhealthy behavior. Notice, the Lord doesn’t say, embarrass the sinner by bringing up their faults in public. That’s not ever one of the steps, is it? Rather, correction is done in private. Calmly, rationally. Not out of revenge, but concern.

It’s interesting to note that the Lord’s teaching on intervention follows his parable of the lost sheep, in which the Lord speaks of the love his heavenly Father has for those who have strayed into sin and error. Jesus, the Son, is sent by the Father to seek out the lost sheep.

As members of the body of Christ on Earth, one of the ways God seeks out and saves his lost sheep is through us: through family members who lovingly and gently confront those who struggle with addiction to drugs, gambling, pornography, internet shopping, video games, parents who act as watchmen over their children, as we heard in the prophet Ezekiel today. If a family member stops going to Church, ignores Church teaching, blasphemes in public, we have a duty to gently correct them, especially parents toward their children.

Of course, the point of correcting fellow Christians when they fall into sin isn’t to prove that we are holier than they are. The point is concern for their souls, and helping them to be the people God made them to be.

God loves lost sheep, which is why he sends us out. God loves addicts. Many people I’ve known who have struggled with addiction have great intellectual gifts, have tremendously large hearts. And sometimes they turn to addiction because they feel emotions like grief so deeply they turn to other mind-altering substances to numb their pain. Though they act in unlovable ways, the addict is a child of God, loved by God.

Intervention and fraternal correction aims to help people who sometimes become incapable of helping themselves, who have fallen into a cycle of hurting themselves and their families, who have started making self-destructive choices. Part of being pro-life, is to help people when they are making anti-life decisions, choices that are destructive to their eternal life, their spiritual life, emotional life, physical life, or family life.

In the Reading from Romans today, St. Paul teaches that all the 10 commandments, don’t commit adultery, don’t break the sabbath day, don’t commit murder, don’t steal or covet, can all be summed-up by the command: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.”

Fraternal correction, confronting the sinner, the addict, is done out of love. Correct the sinner is listed in every Catholic religious textbook as an act of mercy—a spiritual act of charity. Parents correcting their children when they act selfishly, gently correcting your spouse when they act selfishly is done out of love. Helping someone to be the person God made them to be, to walk righteously in the Law of the Lord, is an act of love.

It takes a lot of courage, doesn’t it, to confront someone with gentleness and patience. It’s easier to ignore it, minimize it, justify it, or just complain about it to a third party. It takes courage and carefulness. Engaging a loved one in fraternal correction is a delicate operation: you need to have your facts straight, and you better think before you speak, and ensure that you are rooted in the truth of the Gospel, thinking not as the world thinks, but with the mind of Christ. You need to make sure you aren’t just complaining about valid choices that differ from your own way of doing things—that you aren’t reacting out of a bruised ego, but out of patience and love. That’s hard! This isn’t an easy Gospel.

It is important to take up this difficult task is because we would want someone to help us if we fell in to behavior that was truly hurtful to our family or to the church. “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you” Jesus teaches in his sermon on the mount. If it was me whose life was on a downward spiral of self-destruction, if it was me choosing a lifestyle contrary to the Gospel, I hope I’d have people in my life who loved me enough to help me see the truth about my actions or errors, and help me to reconcile with God and repair the damage I’ve wrought.

We have a duty to speak the truth with love, to care enough about the people in our life that we will help them know and follow Jesus Christ to help others become the people God made them to be, to live in the freedom of the children of God and receive an everlasting inheritance in heaven for the Glory of God and salvation of souls.