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August 14: Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe, Martyr

The Knight of the Immaculata

A disciple of Saint Francis of Assisi, he dedicated his entire life to the Immaculata and remained faithful to Christ until the very end, offering his life to save a man condemned to death in the Auschwitz extermination camp.

This is Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe, born Raymond Kolbe in Poland on January 8, 1894, in the town of Zduńska Wola, near Łódź. From an early age, he showed himself to be lively, intelligent, and deeply drawn to the faith and love of Mary Immaculate.

On November 4, 1910, he entered the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, taking the name Maximilian. Two years later, in 1912, he left for Rome to begin his studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University. While in Rome, on October 16, 1917, together with six confreres, he founded the Militia of the Immaculata, a Marian apostolic movement created to spread devotion to the Virgin Mary and to combat religious indifference.

On April 28, 1918, he was ordained a priest in the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle.
After completing his studies, he returned to Poland, where he began an intense missionary work through Catholic publications. Among his most important initiatives was the launch of the magazine The Knight of the Immaculata, which gained wide circulation.

In 1927, he founded Niepokalanów, also known as the “City of the Immaculata,” a large friary with a printing press and publishing center, entirely dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
In 1930, he left for Japan where, teaching himself Japanese in a short time, he founded another friary with a printing press in Nagasaki, called Mugenzai no Sono (“Garden of the Immaculata”). He returned to Poland in 1936 and continued expanding Niepokalanów, which became one of the largest religious and publishing centers in Europe.

With the Nazi occupation of Poland, he became the target of persecution. On May 28, 1941, he was arrested and deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was tattooed with the number 16670.

A few months later, following the escape of a prisoner, the Nazis decided to punish the entire block: ten men were selected to die in the starvation bunker. One of them, Franciszek Gajowniczek, broke down in tears, thinking of his wife and children. At that moment, Father Maximilian stepped forward and said:

“I am a Polish Catholic priest. I want to die in place of this man.”
His gesture left everyone speechless. In the bunker, he turned those days of agony into a time of grace, leading prayers, hymns, and encouraging his fellow prisoners until the very end. After two weeks of torment, when he was the last survivor, a lethal injection ended his life. The SS found him seated, with a serene face and open eyes. Until his final breath, he had continued to repeat: “Only love creates!”

Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aguinas

15:12–16

12. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

13. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

14. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

15. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

16. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

THEOPHYLACT. Having said, If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love, He shews what commandments they are to keep: This is My commandment, That ye love one another.

GREGORY. (Hom. xxvii. in Evang.) But when all our Lord’s sacred discourses are full of His commandments, why does He give this special commandment respecting love, if it is not that every commandment teaches love, and all precepts are one? Love and love only is the fulfilment of every thing that is enjoined. As all the boughs of a tree proceed from one root, so all the virtues are produced from one love: nor hath the branch, i. e. the good work, any life, except it abide in the root of love.

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. lxxxiii. 3) Where then love is, what can be wanting? where it is not, what can profit? But this love is distinguished from men’s love to each other as men, by adding, As I have loved you. To what end did Christ love us, but that we should reign with Him? Let us therefore so love one another, as that our love be different from that of other men; who do not love one another, to the end that God may be loved, because they do not really love at all. They who love one another for the sake of having God within them, they truly love one another.

GREGORY. (Hom. xxvii.) The highest, the only proof of love, is to love our adversary; as did the Truth Himself, who while He suffered on the cross, shewed His love for His persecutors: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34) Of which love the consummation is given in the next words: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Our Lord came to die for His enemies, but He says that He is going to lay down His life for His friends, to shew us that by loving, we are able to 1 gain over our enemies, so that they who persecute us are by anticipation our friends.

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. lxxxvi. 1) Having said, This is My commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you, it follows, as John saith in his Epistle, that as Christ laid down His life for us, so we should lay down our lives for the brethren. (1 John 3) This the martyrs have done with ardent love. And therefore in commemorating them at Christ’s table, we do not pray for them, as we do for others, but we rather pray that we may follow their steps. For they have shewn the same love for their brother, that has been shewn them at the Lord’s table.

GREGORY. (Hom. xxvii.) But whoso in time of tranquillity will not give up his time to God, how in persecution will he give up his soul? Let the virtue of love then, that it may be victorious in tribulation, be nourished in tranquillity by deeds of mercy.

AUGUSTINE. (viii. de Trin. c. viii) From one and the same love, we love God and our neighbour; but God for His own sake, our neighbour for God’s. So that, there being two precepts of love, on which hang all the Law and the Prophets, to love God, and to love our neighbour, Scripture often unites them into one precept. For if a man love God, it follows that he does what God commands, and if so, that he loves his neighbour, God having commanded this. Wherefore He proceeds: Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

GREGORY. (xxvii. Moral.) A friend is as it were a keeper of the soul. He who keeps God’s commandments, is rightly called His friend.

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. lxxxv. 2) Great condescension! Though to keep his Lord’s commandments, is only what a good servant is obliged to do, yet, if they do so, He calls them His friends. The good servant is both the servant, and the friend. But how is this? He tells us: Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth. Shall we therefore cease to be servants, as soon as ever we are good servants? And is not a good and tried servant sometimes entrusted with his master’s secrets, still remaining a servant? (c. 3.). We must understand then that there are two kinds of servitude, as there are two kinds of fear. There is a fear which perfect love casteth out; which also hath in it a servitude, which will be cast out together with the fear. And there is another, a pure (castus) fear, which remaineth for ever. It is the former state of servitude, which our Lord refers to, when He says, Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth; not the state of that servant to whom it is said, Well done, thou good servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord: (Matt. 25:21) but of him of whom it was said below, The servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth ever. Forasmuch then as God hath given us power to become the sons of God, so that in a wonderful way, we are servants, and yet not servants, we know that it is the Lord who doth this. This that servant is ignorant of, who knoweth not what his Lord doeth, and when he doeth any good thing, is exalted in his own conceit, as if he himself did it, and not his Lord; and boasts of himself, not of his Lord.

But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard of My Father, I have made known unto you.

THEOPHYLACT. As if He said, The servant knoweth not the counsels of his lord; but since I esteem you friends, I have communicated my secrets to you.

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. lxxxvi. 1) But how did He make known to His disciples all things that He had heard from the Father, when He forebore saying many things, because He knew they as yet could not bear them? He made all things known to His disciples, i. e. He knew that He should make them known to them in that fulness of which the Apostle saith, Then we shall know, even as we are known. (1 Cor. 13:12) For as we look for the death of the flesh, and the salvation of the soul; so should we look for that knowledge of all things, which the Only-Begotten heard from the Father.

GREGORY. (Hom. xxvii.) Or all things which He heard from the Father, which He wished to be made known to His servants; the joys of spiritual love, the pleasures of our heavenly country, which He impresses daily on our minds by the inspiration of His love. For while we love the heavenly things we hear, we know them by loving, because love is itself knowledge. He had made all things known to them then, because being withdrawn from earthly desires, they burned with the fire of divine love.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxvii. 1) All things, i. e. all things that they ought to hear. I have heard, shews that what He had taught was no strange doctrine, but received from the Father.

GREGORY. (Hom. in Evang. xxvii.) But let no one who has attained to this dignity of being called the friend of God, attribute this superhuman gift1 to his own merits: Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. lxxxvi. 3) Ineffable grace! For what were we before Christ had chosen us, but wicked, and lost? We did not believe in Him, so as to be chosen by Him: for had He chosen us believing, He would have chosen us choosing. This passage refutes the vain opinion of those who say that we were chosen before the foundation of the world, because God foreknew that we should be good, not that He Himself would make us good. For had He chosen us, because He foreknew that we should be good, He would have foreknown also that we should first choose Him, for without choosing Him we cannot be good; unless indeed he can be called good, who hath not chosen good. What then hath He chosen in them who are not good? Thou canst not say, I am chosen because I believed; for hadst thou believed in Him, thou hadst chosen Him. Nor canst thou say, Before I believed I did good works, and therefore was chosen. For what good work is there before faith? What is there for us to say then, but that we were wicked, and were chosen, that by the grace of the chosen we might become good?

AUGUSTINE. (de Prad. Sanct. c. xvii.) They are chosen then before the foundation of the world, according to that predestination by which God foreknew His future acts. They are chosen out of the world by that call whereby God fulfills what He has predestined: whom He did predestinate, them He also called. (Rom. 8:30)

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. lxxxvi. 3) Observe, He does not choose the good; but those, whom He hath chosen, He makes good: And I have ordained you that ye should go, and bring forth fruit. This is the fruit which He meant, when He said, Without Me ye can do nothing. He Himself is the way in which He hath set (ἔθηκα, posui) us to go.

GREGORY. (Hom. xxvii.) I have set you,i. e. have planted you by grace, that ye should go by will (volendo not in Vulg.); to will being to go in mind, and bring forth fruit, by works. What kind of fruit they should bring forth He then shews: And that your fruit may remain: for worldly labour hardly produces fruit to last our life: and if it does, death comes at last, and deprives us of it all. But the fruit of our spiritual labours endures even after death; and begins to be seen at the very time that the results of our carnal labour begin to disappear. Let us then produce such fruits as may remain, and of which death, which destroys every thing, will be the commencement.

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. lxxxvi. 3) Love then is one fruit, now existing in desire only, not yet in fulness. Yet even with this desire whatever we ask in the name of the Only-Begotten Son, the Father giveth us: That whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He may give it you. We ask in the Saviour’s name, whatever we ask, that will be profitable to our salvation.

15:17–21

17. These things I command you, that ye love one another.

AUGUSTINE. (Tract. lxxxvii. 1) Our Lord had said, I have ordained that ye should walk, and bring forth fruit. Love is this fruit. Wherefore He proceeds: These things I command you, that ye love one another. (Gal. 5:22) Hence the Apostle saith: The fruit of the Spirit is love; and enumerates all other graces as springing from this source. Well then doth our Lord commend love, as if it were the only thing commanded: seeing that without it nothing can profit, with it nothing be wanting, whereby a man is made good.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxxvii. 2) Or thus: I have said that I lay down My life for you, and that I first chose you. I have said this not by way of reproach, but to induce you to love one another. Then as they were about to suffer persecution and reproach, He bids them not to grieve, but rejoice on that account: If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you: as if to say, I know it is a hard trial, but ye will endure it for My sake.

Catena Aurea John 15

Royal Door

Unknown Cretan iconographer

1450-1500
Egg tempera on spruce, 116 x 59 cm
Ikonen-Museum, Recklinghausen

The double door was the central entrance of a templon (an iconostasis) and once led to the sanctuary (bema). What is striking is the shape of the door with its twice-curved ogee arch, a feature that is known neither from Byzantine nor Russian royal doors. During the Byzantine period, double doors with a round arch were customary. They replaced the curtains which had previously been used to cover the entrances to the templon.

The door is decorated with images painted on it over a gold background. The top left image shows the Archangel Michael in armour holding a raised sword, the top right image depicts Gabriel holding a staff and a sphaira (orb). Painted on the door's lower zone are the abbot Saint Zosimas and the ascetic hermit Mary of Egypt. They are represented at the moment when Zosimas administers communion to the former prostitute as a sign of forgiveness; she had atoned her sins as an anchorite in the desert for 47 years.

Source

KEYWORDS: catholic; jn15; mt18; ordinarytime; prayer

St. Hippolytus of Rome (about 170-236 A.D.)

Tabernacle

Orcagna (architext and sculptor), Bernardo Daddi (Virgin and Child icon)

1359
Marble, lapis lazuli, gold and glass inlay
Orsanmichele, Florence

Orcagna - a painter, sculptor and architect - was commissioned to execute the only significant, large-scale sculpture of the time in Florence, the mammoth tabernacle for Orsanmichele. This Gothic marble structure, rather like a miniature church, was a religious and civic edifice built to house Bernardo Daddi's repainting of a lost image of the Virgin and Child. Hexagonal reliefs of the virtues and octagonal reliefs of the Life of the Virgin alternate on its base. The programme culminates in the large relief on the back, the Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin, where the work is signed and dated 1359.

The tabernacle is encrusted with precious lapis, gold and glass inlay that creates a brilliant, shining polychromy; it is especially dense in the celestial realm, rendering the area still flatter. The elaborate decoration is equivalent to the rich brocades in contemporary painting, a taste which blossomed with the International Gothic style.

Source

Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aguinas

18:15–17

15. Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.

16. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

17. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church: but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a Publican.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lx.) Having above given a severe sentence against those who were the cause of offence, making them to fear on all sides; so now that they to whom the offence is offered should not fall into the opposite fault of supineness and indifference, seeking to spare themselves in all things, and so be puffed up; the Lord here checks such a tendency, commanding that they be reproved, saying, If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go, tell him his fault between thee and him alone.

AUGUSTINE. (Serm. 82. 1.) Our Lord admonishes us not to overlook one another’s faults, yet not so as seeking for matter of blame, but watching what you may amend. For our rebuke should be in love, not eager to wound, but anxious to amend. If you pass it by, you are become worse than he. He by doing you a wrong hath done himself a great hurt; you slight your brother’s wound, and are more to blame for your silence than he for his ill words to you.

AUGUSTINE. (de Civ. Dei, i. 9.) For often we wrongly shun to teach and admonish, or to rebuke and check the wicked, either because the task is irksome, or because we would escape their enmity, lest they should harm or obstruct us in temporal things, whether in gaining objects we desire, or in holding what our frailty fears to love. But if any one spares reproof of evil doers, because he seeks fitter occasion, or fears to make them worse, or that they may be an impediment to the good and pious living of other weak ones, or may grieve them, or turn them from the faith; herein there is seen no considerations of covetousness, but the prudence of charity. And much weightier reason have they who are set over the churches, to the end they should not spare to rebuke sin; though not even he is free from this blame, who, though not in authority, wots of many things in them to whom he is bound by the ties of this life, which should be touched by admonition or correction, but neglects to do so; shunning their displeasure on account of things which he does not unduly use in this life, but wherewith he is unduly delighted.

CHRYSOSTOM. It is to be noted, that onewhile the Lord brings the offender to him whom he has offended; as when he says, If thou remember that thy brother has might against thee, go, be reconciled to thy brother: (Mat. 5:23.) otherwhiles He bids him that has suffered the wrong to forgive his neighbour; as where he says, Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. (Mat. 6:12.) Here He has devised yet another method, for He brings him who has been grieved to him that grieved him, and therefore says, If thy brother sin against thee; for because he that did the wrong would not readily come to make amends, because of his shame, He draws to him him that has suffered the wrong; and not only draws him there, but with the very purpose of correcting what was done amiss; whence He says, Go and tell hint his fault.

RABANUS. He does not command us to forgive indiscriminately, but him only that will hearken and be obedient, and do penitence; that neither should forgiveness be unattainable, nor sufferance be too far relaxed.

CHRYSOSTOM. And He says not, Accuse him, nor, Chide with him, nor, Demand redress,—but, Tell him of his fault; that is, remind him of his sin, tell him what things you have suffered from him. For he is held down by anger or by shame, stupefied as one in a deep slumber. Wherefore it behoves you who are in your right senses to go to him who is in a disease.

JEROME. If then your brother have sinned against you, or hurt you in any matter, you have power, indeed must needs forgive him, for we are charged to forgive our debtors their debts. But if a man sin against God, it is no longer in our decision. But we do all tho contrary of this; where God is wronged we are merciful, where the affront is to ourselves we prosecute the quarrel.

CHRYSOSTOM. We are to tell his fault to the man himself who did it, and not to another, because the party takes it with the more patience from him, and above all when they are together alone. For when he who had a right to demand reparation, shews rather a carefulness to heal the sore, this has great power to propitiate.

AUGUSTINE. (Serm. 82, 7.) When any one therefore offends against us, let us be very careful, not for ourselves, for it is glorious to forget an injury; forget therefore your own wrong, but not the wound your brother has sustained; and tell him of his fault between him and you alone, seeking his amendment and sparing his shame. For it may be that out of shame he will seek to defend his fault, and thus you will only harden, while you sought to do him good.

JEROME. Thy brother is to be reproved in private, lest if once he has lost a sense of shame, he should continue in sin.

AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) But the Apostle says, Them that sin ‘rebuke before all, that others may fear to do the like. (1 Tim 5:20.) Sometimes therefore your brother is to be spoken to between thee and him alone, sometimes to be rebuked before all. What you must do first, attend and learn; If thy brother, says He, sin against thee, tell him of his fault between thee and him alone. Why? Because he has sinned against you? What is it that he has sinned against you? You know that he has sinned, and therefore since his sin was in private, let your rebuke be in private too. For if you alone know of his trespass, and proceed to rebuke him before all, you do not correct but betray him. Your brother has sinned against you; if you alone know thereof, then he has sinned against you only; but if he did you a wrong in the presence of many, then he has sinned against those also who were witnesses of his fault. Those faults then are to be rebuked before all, that are committed before all; those which are done in private, are to be rebuked in private. Discern times, and the Scriptures are consistent. But why do you correct your neighbour? Because his trespass has hurt yourself? Far be it from thee. If you do it from self-love, you do nought; if you do it from love of him, you do most rightly. Lastly, in what you shall say to him, keep in view for whose sake it is that you ought to do it, for your own or for his, for it follows, If he hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother; do it therefore for his sake, that you may gain him. And do you confess that by your sin against man you were lost; for if you were not lost, how has he gained you? Let none then make light of it when he sins against his brother.

CHRYSOSTOM. In this it is made plain that enmities are a loss to both sides; for he said not, he has gained himself, but, you have gained him; which shews that both of you had suffered loss by your disagreement.

JEROME. For in saving another, salvation is gained for ourselves also. Chrys What you should do if he does not yield is added, If he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two. For the more shameless and stubborn he shews himself, the more studious should we be of applying the medicine, and not turn to wrath and hate. As the physician, if he see that the disease does not abate, he does not slack, but redoubles his efforts to heal. And observe how this reproof is not for revenge, but for correction, seeing his command is not to take two with him at first, but when he would not amend; and even then he does not send a multitude to him, but one or two, alleging the law, That in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand. (Deut. 19:15.) This is that you may have witnesses that you have done all your part.

JEROME. Or it is to be understood in this way; If he will not hear thee, take with thee one brother only; if he yet will not hear, take a third, either from your zeal for his amendment, that shame or admonition may move him; or for the purpose of meeting before witnesses.

GLOSS. (ap. Anselm.) Or, that if he affirm that it is no trespass, that they may prove to him that it is a trespass.

JEROME. If yet he will not hear them, then it must be told to many, that he may be held in abhorrence; so that he who could not be saved by his own sense of shame, may be saved by public disgrace; whence it follows, If he will not hear them, tell it to the Church.

CHRYSOSTOM. That is, to those that are over the Church.

GLOSS. (ap. Anselm.) Or, tell it to the whole Church, that his infamy may be the greater. After all these things follows excommunication, which ought to be inflicted by the mouth of the Church, that is, by the Priest, and when he excommunicates, the whole Church works with him; as it follows, And if he will not hear the Church, let him by unto thee as an heathen, and a publican.

AUGUSTINE. (Serm. 82, 7.) That is, regard him no longer in the number of thy brethren. Though even thus we are not to neglect his salvation; for the heathens themselves, that is, the gentiles and pagans, we do not indeed regard in the number of our brethren, yet we ever seek their salvation.

CHRYSOSTOM. Yet the Lord enjoins nothing of this sort to be observed towards those who are without the Church, such as He does in reproving a brother. Of those that are without He says. If any smite thee on the one cheek, offer to him the other also. (Mat. 5:39.) as Paul speaks, What have I to do to judge them that are without? (1 Cor. 5:12.) But brethren he bids us reprove, and turn away from.

JEROME. That He says, As a heathen and a publican, shews that he is to be more abhorred, who under the name of a believer does the deeds of an unbeliever, than those that are openly gentiles. Those He calls publicans, who pursue worldly gain, and levy contributions by trading, cheating, and villainous frauds, and perjuries.

ORIGEN. Let us look well whether this precept extends to all sin; for what if any one sin any of those sins which are unto death, such as unnatural crimes, adultery, homicide, or effeminacy, it cannot be meant that such as these are to be admonished privately, and if he hear you, forthwith to say that you have gained him. And not rather first put him out of the Church, or only when remaining obstinate after monition before witnesses, and by the Church? One man, looking at the infinite mercy of Christ, will say, that since the words of Christ make no distinction of sins, it is to go against Christ’s mercy to limit His words only to little sins. Another, on the other hand, considering the words carefully, will aver, that they are not spoken of every sin; for that he that is guilty of those great sins is not a brother, but is called a brother, with whom, according to the Apostle, we ought not so much as to eat. But as they who expound this as referring to every sin give encouragement to the careless to sin; so, on the other hand, he, who teaches that one having sinned in little sins and such as are not deadly, is, when he has spurned the admonition of the witnesses and the Church, to be held as a heathen and a publican, seems to introduce too great severity. For whether he finally perishes, we are not able to decide. First, because he who has been thrice told of his fault and not hearkened, may hearken the fourth time; secondly, because sometimes a man does not receive according to his deeds, but beyond his trespass, which is good for him in this world; lastly, because He said not alone, Let him be as a heathen, but Let him be to thee. Whosoever then when reproved three times in a light trespass, does not amend, him we ought to hold for a heathen and a publican, avoiding him, that he may be brought to confusion. But whether he is esteemed of God also as a heathen and a publican, is not ours to decide, but is in the judgment of God.

18:18–20

18. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

19. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.

20. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

JEROME. Because He had said, If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as a heathen, and a publican, whereupon the brother so contemned might answer, or think within himself, If you despise me, I also will despise you; if you condemn me, you shall be condemned by my sentence. He therefore confers powers upon the Apostles, that they may be assured that when any are condemned after this manner, the sentence of man is ratified by the sentence of God. Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose upon the earth shall be loosed in heaven.

ORIGEN. He said not in the heavens (in cœlis), as when He spoke to Peter, but in heaven (in cœlo), for they are not yet attained to the like perfection with Peter.

HILARY. To hold out a great and terrible fear, by which all men should be reached in this present life, He pronounces that the judgment of the Apostles should be ratified, so that whosoever they bound on earth, i. e. left entangled in the noose of sin, and whosoever they loosed, i. e. accorded the pardon of God’s mercy to their salvation, that these should be bound and loosed in heaven.

CHRYSOSTOM. And be it noted, that He said not to the Primate1 of the Church, Bind such a man; but, If ye shall bind him, the bonds shall be indissoluble; leaving the other to his discretion. And see how He has set the incorrigible person under the yoke of a twofold necessity; to wit, the punishment that is here, namely, the casting forth out of the Church, when He said, Let him be to thee as a heathen; and the future punishment, saying, that he shall be bound in heaven; thus by the weight of his penalties lessening his brother’s wrath against him.

AUGUSTINE. (ubi sup.) Otherwise; When you begin to hold your brother as a publican you bind him on earth, but take heed that you bind him with just cause; for an unjust cause breaks rightful bonds. But when you have corrected him, and agreed with him, you have loosed him upon earth, and when you have loosed him upon earth, he shall be loosed also in heaven. You confer a great boon not on yourself, but on him, as he had done the hurt not to you but to himself.

GLOSS. (ap. Anselm.) But He holds out a ratification not only of sentences of excommunication, but of every petition which is offered by men holding together in the unity of the Church; for He adds, Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree upon earth, whether in admitting a penitent, or casting out a forward person, touching any thing which they shall ask, any thing, that is, that is not against the unity of the Church, it shall be done for them by my Father which is in heaven. By saying, which is in heaven, He points Him out as above all, and therefore able to fulfil all that shall be asked of Him. Or, He is in the heavens, that is, with saints, proof enough that whatever worthy thing they shall ask shall be done unto them, because they have with them Him of whom they ask. For this cause is the sentence of those that agree together ratified, because God dwells in them, For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

CHRYSOSTOM. Or, because He had said, It shall be done unto them by My Father; therefore, to shew that He is the Giver together with His Father, He adds this, where two or three, &c.

ORIGEN. And He said not, I will be, but I am in the midst of them; because straightway, as soon as they have agreed together, Christ is found among them.

HILARY. For He who is peace and charity, will set His place and habitation in good and peaceable dispositions.

JEROME. Or otherwise; All His foregoing discourse had invited us to union; now to make us embrace peace more anxiously, He holds out a reward, promising to be in the midst of two or three.

CHRYSOSTOM. Yet He said not barely, Where they are gathered together, but added, in my name, as much as to say, If any man look upon Me as the chief motive of his love to his neighbour, I will be with him, though he is virtue be shewn towards other men. How is it then that those who thus agree together do not obtain what they ask for? First, because they ask things not expedient, and because they do not bring on their parts that which they ought to contribute; wherefore He says, If two of you, that is, who shew an evangelic conversation. Thirdly, because they pray seeking vengeance against those who have grieved them. And fourthly, because they seek mercy for sinners who have not repented.

ORIGEN. And this also is the reason why our prayers are not granted, because we do not agree together in all things upon earth, neither in doctrine, nor in conversation. For as in music, unless the voices are in time there is no pleasure to the hearer, so in the Church, unless they are united God is not. pleased therein, nor does He hear their words.

JEROME. (vid. Origen. in loc.) We may also understand this spiritually; where our spirit, soul, and body are in agreement, and have not within them conflicting wills, they shall obtain from My Father every thing they shall ask; for none can doubt that that demand is good, where the body wills the same thing as the spirit.

ORIGEN. Or, In whatever the two testaments are in agreement, for this every prayer is found acceptable to God.

Catena Aurea Matthew 18

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