Wherever two or three are gathered in My Name, there am I in their midst

Ezk. 9:1-7.10:18-22, Mt. 18:15-20. The two readings witness to a sense of unity among the chosen people of God. In today's first reading, Ezekiel sees that their collective life goes on, even in their exile; while today's Gospel affirms the presence of Jesus with the Church community, even if “two or three gathered in my name.” Death also features in Ezekiel’s vision of Jerusalem, as the exile begins. After the angel of life has gone through the Temple and city to mark with an “X” on the foreheads of the sincere servants of God, then the angels of death do their grim work, beginning with the elders out in front of the Temple. Temple and city are strewn with sinful corpses and profanation is everywhere. The glory of the Lord departs from the Holy of Holies and moves eastward out of the city till it rests on the Mount of Olives. The prophet portrays a people in which evil and virtue, death and life, loss and new hope exist side by side. Just as a proud purist cannot be fully at home within this people of God, neither can a person totally devoid of ideals and hopes.

A community arrives at its best when its inherent goodness and virtue come to the fore. Each of us is a combination of the good and the bad. We need one another, so that goodness in one person challenges the evil in another, while the different kind of goodness in this other acts as a purifying agent on the former. In today's Gosoel, Jesus makes it clear that none of us can manage our virtues or faults independently of the community of believers, the Church. Some problems can be settled quickly between the individuals concerned; others are more difficult and require someone outside the immediate circle but not outside the Church. The witness of the Church again takes place in a community way, not on the word of a single person but “on the word of two or three witnesses.” Jesus also wants us to pray within the communion of the Church. Otherwise the best of our moments can degenerate into mere expressions of individualism. In contrast, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst.” This is to say that the smallest gathering in a small Church, whether for prayer or communal life, is hugely significant because the living Lord is present in the world through them.

May the Lord be with us and guide us in our journey of faith that we may find the true path to salvation in unity! Amen!! Stay safe and have a wonderful day!!!