Fraternal Correction

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“And the Lord's servant,” says St. Paul, “must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant they will repent and come to know the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:24-26).

St. Paul speaks to us about looking around towards other people and helping them to be better. The Father has written to us recently about fraternal correction, inviting us to rediscover the richness, the treasure, of fraternal correction.

We could thank Our Lord that we live this practice the way that we do in the Work, that we are open to being corrected, that we try and put the effort into helping our sisters to be corrected, helping everyone to be better.

If you want to be more, be better, because we know that's the greatest good, for helping people to be holy. That's why we're here.

We have this treasure of charity, whereby we try to see others with the eyes of Christ.

“Lord, help me to see”–Domine, ut videam (Luke 18:41) to always look at others with your eyes, to see the good that is in them. Don't let the devil blind me to other things.

It's an expression of the trust that Our Lord wants us to live in the Work. We trust the others to correct us, and they trust us to correct them. We rely on the others. We're never alone.

One of the ways that we express that is through fraternal correction.

People have our back; they're watching out for us. They want the best for us, and they want us to be better and holier.

We all have that same responsibility, to be looking out for the best in the others around us and helping them to be better and to be the best.

One time, in a get-together in Rome, Don Álvaro was talking about how we might see something that's good to be a matter for correction. But we might say, ‘That person is much older than me,’ or ‘They're much longer in the Work,’ or ‘They're much better than me.’

A whole pile of other thoughts could go through our minds. “But,” he said, “You are there for that person in persona Patris, in the person of the Father. And I am the Father, and I want that person to be holy.”

He was encouraging us, urging us to live this practice well, to see ourselves as being in persona Patris, in the person of the Father, for those people that are there around us so that we're not put off or distracted from giving corrections for all sorts of reasons: fear of invading the privacy of the other person, or the sense of telling tales, or lack of naturalness because of the involvement of a third party, or a lack of confidence to say something in a fraternal way. The devil can place all sorts of obstacles in front of us.

Self-love could be another one. I don't correct a person out of comfort. It makes too many demands on myself. All of that may be easy, but it's not supernatural.

Our Lord invites us to be very supernatural, to see the person with the eyes of Christ, to pass on the charity of Christ to that person. And to remind ourselves, each time that we have to give a correction, that this is the greatest act of supernatural love that I could practice with my sister.

It's a reminder to them that they're not alone, that they form part of a family, that they're understood, that they're helped, that they're loved, that the people around them want the best for them. They want heaven for them.

It's one of the ways that we protect the spirit of the Work and make sure that our spirit is lived in all of its authenticity.

For that, we'll have to account before God in how we have been vigilant with the treasure that has been entrusted to us. It's a serious responsibility.

When we receive a fraternal correction, first and foremost, we could try and always remember, ‘This is the greatest act of supernatural affection that somebody can practice with me. Irrespective of how I may feel or how this thing may have hit me, over and above everything else, it's a great act of affection.’

That colors everything. Sometimes when we get an injection or a jab there can be a little prick or something and it could sting for a moment or two. But then the fruit of that injection, we know, does us a great good.

It’s the same thing with fraternal correction. There might be an initial little pain or difficulty, but then we know this thing is going to do us a great good.

Then we bring it to our prayer, or we talk about it in the chat, and we try to go deeper on that particular point.

It can be a very good thing to write it down, and on our next recollection or maybe our next retreat, to have a little look back at the corrections we've received, to remind ourselves of those things and to keep struggling in them.

Some of them might be work for a lifetime. We won't be able to make a big impact or big inroads immediately, but over time, maybe we'll produce the fruit of the improvement.

We shouldn't have any fear of receiving a correction. It's not a sign of failure or dishonor. Memories of corrections in the past can only fill us with gratitude for the people around us who have taken the trouble to point out certain things to us.

They can lead us to have a great spirit of thanksgiving to Our Lord, as proof that we're part of a family.

When we bring it to our prayer and look at it with the light of the Holy Spirit, hopefully, we see it in the context of love. A fraternal correction is born of love, and therefore we have to try and respond with love.

See what I can do to improve on this particular point. Take it seriously, write it down, looking at it again and again. It's charity expressed in the greatest possible ways.

Lord, help us to rediscover the value of fraternal correction.

As we get older in our vocation, then we have a greater responsibility, because we have more formation, because we have more maturity, because we have more experience.

We see things in different ways. We see consequences of actions or of works or ways of doing things, and that helps us to have a bigger picture.

Don Álvaro del Portillo used to say that whenever anyone was corrected by our Father, they felt wounded, but wounded by the love of God.

Our Father set the bar very high. “We always have to try to have a big heart,” said our Father, “for loving God and for loving others” (cf. Josemaría Escrivá, Christ Is Passing By, Point 158).

He said, “I often ask Our Lord to give me a heart to the measure of His” (cf. J. Escrivá, Furrow, Point 813). It's all about heart, wanting the best.

It might be more comfortable to let things pass, or not to have to say certain things to people. But yet it's not more supernatural.

We have to try and have the fortitude to say no to our comfort, to our self-love. We face the challenge. We live our generosity and our spirit of service in that way.

It's one of the ways that we expand our heart. We make sure that it's in the right place in our vocation, in the apostolate, in the fruitfulness of what we're doing.

“I do this, in the first place,” said our Father, “to be more full of Him, and then to love everyone without ever complaining. And maybe to be understanding and forgive other people's defects, because I cannot forget how much God has put up for me.”

We don't correct other people because we are better than them. We know we are worse than them.

We try and see all the people around us as saints who are struggling to be holy, perhaps carrying a cross. There are people whom God has placed in our midst so that we can help them to carry that cross and help them to reach that sanctity that God has called them to.

Every time we have to point out something to people, we can try and think of their good points. We live with great people. We need to remind ourselves of that from time to time.

They've done wonderful things, they're very generous with their life. They're trying to put virtues into practice, who work hard, who give themselves again and again.

It's a wonderful scenario. “But the understanding that we have of other people,” said our Father, “which is true affection, is also shown in fraternal correction.”

It's interesting how our Father, when he was setting up the Work, insisted with the Holy See that he would have two people there closer to him, who would be the people who would correct him.

It's a manifestation of a lot of humility. Awareness of our nothingness. We need people around us who will tell us things.

Our Father had the humility and the great love of his vocation to want that. He wanted all the help that he could get.

‘I need this help,’ he told the people. ‘And if I'm to give that spiritual input to so many people, I need people around me who can tell me all sorts of things.’

That's a great grace and a great gift.

Thank you, Lord, for placing people around me who can tell me things. Sometimes they might be very small things, but sometimes they might be big things with huge consequences.

It's a means of formation. Our formation is ongoing all the time.

Part of that formation, that may be depending on that particular point that person has seen, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and they'll point it out to me, which might have wonderful consequences later on, or might save me from many dangers. Dangers that I might not have seen or realized, because they want me to get to heaven.

“It's born of affection”—one of the ways we have of helping people, helping them a little more, to be a little better, to be happier (Fernando Ocáriz, Letter, November 1, 2019).

We can be very happy when we receive a correction because it's a sign we're on the right track, that people are helping us not away off track.

“You run very well,” says St. Paul, “but you're outside the course” (cf. Gal. 5:7). What a tragedy. What a silly thing.

You're running so well, but outside the course, in the wrong direction. That's why we need people around us, to bring us back a little bit onto the right direction, because we're all capable of going astray.

If on occasion we find it a little bit more difficult to do, because of the person or because of the topic, it may be all the more important.

We can ask Our Lord for the grace to help us, to follow through with that particular thing. It's one of the ways we build up our family warmth.

In this Year of St. Joseph (December 8, 2020-2021), that's one of our concerns: to grow closer as a family. Be more united, more focused.

St. Joseph will draw us together and bring new fruits. We could ask him to help us to see the ways in which we can build up that family spirit like he built it up in the Holy Family.

In the recent letter the Father has sent us (Fernando Ocáriz, Letter, July 17, 2021), he's invited us this week to be a little more focused on St. Mary Magdalene, on her feast day, on her significance for us, on the trajectory of her life which brought about a great conversion.

She who came to love Our Lord in such a powerful way, faithful to the cross—Mary Magdalene, help us to see that I also need conversion. Help me to see the areas and places and ways where I need to be converted. Maybe other people need to point that out to me.

That truth will set us free, liberate us for a new beginning on the right track.

When we receive a correction, we can try and bring it to our prayer. Talk to Our Lord about it and hopefully, eventually, see what a great help that is for our soul.

Ultimately, fraternal correction is focused on our soul, helping our soul to be better—better disposed, more humble, more effective—with that wonderful consolation of knowing that I'm not left on my own. I form part of this family—the family that St. Joseph is looking out for.

And this is all part of God's plan, part of His gaze. He looks upon us in His loving providence and sends us people to help us.

St. Paul says to the Romans, “And if you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth—you, then, who teach others, will you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal?” (Romans 2:19-21).

There's a whole pile of things that we see in the lives of others but don't see in our own life, because all our greatest defects were blinded by our pride.

But other people see them, and possibly they see them in glorious technicolor. They see us as we are.

And so, we always have to have that sense of humility. ‘I'm not the great person I thought I am, that my vain thoughts lead me to be. Lord, help me to keep my feet on the ground to realize there are a lot of things that I need to grow in.’

St. Paul says to Timothy, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16).

We try to love, work for love, we try to do everything for love. We correct people, we try to correct them out of love as well—not out of self-love: ‘I want this person to be like this, because that's the way I say that they should be.’

We try to correct them because that's the right way of doing things, or the right way of being.

And when we see the things that could be better in other people's lives, we first and foremost try and think of our own. ‘Can I improve on this particular thing? Where do I need to be better?’

Sometimes you might come across a box of matches that are all burnt out; all of them used up.

We're not like that, we're not like the matches that burn only once. We're meant to be like a lantern, always burning, always giving off light, and love, and truth.

Fraternal correction helps us to be that lantern, always burning, giving example in everything we do, a shining light.

“You will only be good,” said our Father in The Forge, “if you know how to see the good points and the virtues of others” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 455).

We can ask Our Lord for that special grace. Help me to continually see all the good points of the people around me.

The devil can be very active in pointing out all the bad things. Help me to see their abilities, their talents, the good things that they do. Open my eyes.

“That is why,” St. Josemaría says, “when you have to correct, you should do so with charity, at the opportune moment, without humiliating…And being ready to learn and to improve in the very faults you're correcting” (Ibid.).

When we're giving a correction, we do it with charity. We don't try to outstare the person that's receiving the correction, because we know that we are nothing.

“Don’t neglect,” he says, “the practice of fraternal correction, which is a clear sign of the supernatural virtue of charity” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 146).

Sometimes our charity can just be on a human plane. Our Lord wants us to lift it up onto a supernatural plane. It’s not just human charity we're dealing with; it’s supernatural charity.

And that lifts up the whole world. The whole center. The whole fruitfulness of everything we're doing.

“You may find it hard,” he says, ‘for it's easier to be inhibited. It's easier to behave that way, but it's not supernatural” (Ibid.).

We're called to be supernatural in all that we do; to seek Christ, like Mary Magdalene sought Him when she felt that sense of loss.

“And you will have to render an account to God for such omissions” (Ibid.)

God gives us the grace to give certain corrections, to say certain things, to tackle certain points in our prayer.

If there are things we've noticed that seem a bit odd or that might irritate us in some way, or we see that there seems to be something funny in that comment or in that way of doing things, trust your sensitivity.

We are people with a lot of formation. We have a good nose and a good ear. So if something sounds a bit funny, or we sense something is wrong here, probably we're right.

If we bring that thing to our prayer, we may see it clearly.

Or maybe there's a very small thing that we notice, and we might think, ‘That's just a very small thing; it's not worth mentioning.’

But you see, maybe ten other people have noticed some small thing as well. If we each go to the director with that small thing, that might lead to something big, and that might be very important.

St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Nothing moves us to love more than knowing ourselves to be loved.”

We remind ourselves that this is the greatest act of supernatural charity that my sisters can practice with me. That lifts us up. What a wonderful thing to know that I’m not alone—people care.

Sometimes we have to give a fraternal correction to older people, people who are longer with the Work. That can be very important. We have to be very responsible. Our spirit has been entrusted to us.

The treasure of our spirit—and that has to last for all time—has been entrusted to us at this particular point in time to make it yield fruit.

And there might be times when we need a lot of fortitude. ‘Lord, give me the strength to correct.’

Sometimes our Father corrected very strongly. He said he had to ask for that fortitude because he knew he'd have to give an account to God.

It can be a great contribution to the apostolate, because if we're giving formation to many people—supernumeraries, cooperators, St. Gabriel people, St. Raphael people—maybe all these people will benefit from us being better or doing things in the right way.

It assures unity, assures fruitfulness, fosters charity. It's a duty of charity and of justice, part of being the good shepherd.

The Work gives us all the means we need for our sanctification, and because the Work gives us all those means that we need for our sanctification, the Work has a right to expect our necessary correspondence in order to maintain the purity of our spirit.

We've received the spirit of the Work in great purity. It has been entrusted to us. We've got to guard that spirit and make sure this is lived in all sorts of ways.

Fraternal correction is one of the greatest means we have to change people.

People change with affection and with fraternal correction. They don't change with comments here and there, insinuations, or tones, or other little things.

We all need that affection and that fraternal correction. It helps us to maintain our ascetical struggle alive.

It also gives us self-knowledge. One time at a get-together, our Father asked people, “How are you going to guard your self-knowledge?”

We're always getting to know ourselves a little bit more, a little bit better. We never fully solve the mystery.

But we get to know ourselves a little better, and that can help our struggle to be joyful. It fosters loyalty, confidence, naturalness.

I know that if I may do anything wrong, if I put my foot in it, somebody will tell me. And that means we can relax and be happy in family life. The sky's the limit. I can do what I want.

I can feel very free because I know if I say something or do something that’s a bit awful, then I'll be told. I don't have to go around the place watching my Ps and Qs.

That can help us to have a greater rectitude of intention and to see the spirit as a way of practicing refinement.

Our Father wanted that we’d have a very refined charity that's manifested in very supernatural ways. We communicate clearly.

We don't walk around the place with something in our minds or in our hearts, something we've seen or noticed that bothers us, but we can't get it out.

We never judge the intentions of other people. We know their intentions are great. The very fact that they're here is a wonderful thing.

We try to give that correction promptly, to avoid human respect, to practice it in the way that our Father has given it to us.

When we receive it, we try to have a real desire to implement it. We show our desire to be holy and to be more fruitful by really working on that particular thing. We don't try to justify ourselves or give explanations.

If we see somebody coming towards us with a look on their face that they're going to give us a fraternal correction, we don't disappear through the first door on the left!

And the matters for fraternal correction? Well, it can be everything, because of our unity of life, because we try to put things into practice.

We help people in the way they do the norms, in their life of piety. We help them perhaps in their apostolic vibration, in their approach to the means of formation, in the way they live their recollection, or the way they take care of souls around them, or aspects that affect the apostolate of public opinion, the public relations in various ways.

We help people with good manners, with elegance, with manners of speech, with human virtues.

Usually, they're small things, but those small things all put together can come to something big.

The false reasons that can be there for not giving corrections? Fear of how it will be received, or the presuming that it will be done by someone else.

Or thinking that, I have the same defect; I'm just as bad. Or that people are holier than us.

If we have a fear of how it will be received—that it won't be received well—that’s to prejudge other people. It's a judgment that says that person doesn't want to be better, doesn't want to be holy.

We have to try and implement it quickly so that the thing doesn't have to be mentioned to us again.

Mary, give us the grace to notice things, which is good spirit. To be vigilant. Cor meum vigilat, my heart is vigilant.

We go to the person who has the grace of state. We don't decide ourselves whether it's big or small or important or unimportant.

If we're giving a lot of fraternal corrections, it may mean that we're thinking a lot of the others. If we're giving a few, it may mean that we're not thinking so much of the others.

It's something we give personally. We don't give a fraternal correction to people through a talk that we're giving or through a chat. I mention something that refers to one particular person in this particular group or a moment. The priest doesn't give fraternal corrections through the meditation.

It's something done one-on-one, personally. It's an obligation of fidelity.

When we receive it, we say thank you. We smile and carry on. Even if we don't understand, if we pray about it, we'll see things.

It's a means of formation. The Holy Spirit works through fraternal correction. When we receive a correction, we can remind ourselves the Holy Spirit is here.

This may be some small seed, but it may be a big thing. It helps me to “get rid of the beam that is in my own eye” (cf. Matt. 7:5), like an email or a WhatsApp from God focused on this particular message.

We can ask St. Joseph in this Year of St. Joseph, and Our Lady, to help us to see those things that they want us to see in the lives of others and also in our own lives, so that we can work on them and build up our family spirit, so that all the time we grow to a greater effectiveness.

Mary, Queen of Apostles, pray for us.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

UI