Our Holy Father St. Francis and St. Benedict before him were masters in the art and spirituality of fraternal correction. Fortunately for you folks, Benedict and Francis wrote and taught a very young audience, since the original monks and friars of each order were very young men. Actually, Benedict and Francis were also very young men when they began. So, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to share a tad of what I have learned from them on this matter. I say a tad, because there is much to be learned here.
There are two ways of fraternal correction and both are active, even though one may look more passive. The first way is more obvious. You pull the person aside and you explain your concerns. It is very important to let the person know that these are your concerns and why they are important to you. This helps the person understand that you’re not being a bully or trying to pick a fight. It is also very important to communicate how much you care about the other person and his welfare. To correct someone, because you want them to act in a Christian manner is not fraternal. That’s condescending.
Francis always said that if you were going to be condescending it was better for the heretic if you left him alone in his heresy. At least while he is in his heresy, he may still be saved, because he does not know that he is wrong. But when you treat him with condescension, you trigger his hatred. Now you have put his soul in greater danger, because hatred is worse than heresy, since many heretics actually believe that they are right. The point is not to give someone cause to sin more. You avoid that by communicating that you care. But here is something that Benedict taught. You can’t just tell someone that you care about them. You must actually love them. This is why Benedict chose to call the superiors of his order, Abba, the same name that Jesus used for his Father, hence the term Abbot. It was the role of the Abbot to correct his brothers. But he had to love them as our heavenly Father loves. When you love as God the Father loves, you avoid doing harm when you correct. This does not mean that the other person is going to like the correction. It just means that they won’t be hurt by your correction or that your correction won’t push them to do something worse, such a hate.
There is a second way to do fraternal correction, which may be more practical in a school setting. This is the Franciscan method. The Benedictine method is the one-on-one with the love of a Father toward a son. The Franciscan method is to correct through example. There was a time when Francis invited one of our brothers to preach in a very sinful town. The brother reluctantly agreed. He knew that the people in that town were rough and that they were too many to convert as a whole. But he trusted Francis’ judgment, so he went along. They walked into the town and down the main street until they arrived at the other end of the town and found themselves outside again. The brother turned to Brother Francis and asked, “Holy Father, were we not going to preach there?” Francis responded, “We did.” The brother was confused. So he asked Brother Francis, “Holy Father, when did we preach?” Brother Francis responded, “Whenever you show kindness, love and the virtues of the Gospel, you are speaking a message that is louder than any sermon from a pulpit.”
The point that our Holy Father was making is that sometimes you can’t take on an entire village one-on-one. But you can take on the whole village if you are visible. If you do not hide and you do not shy away from those who are doing wrong, but you treat them with love, respect and you treat them as if you were talking to Jesus, you are teaching them that they are better than what they think about themselves. You see, young people today are not very confident. That’s what they are vulgar, rude, oppositional and do things that will hurt them. They are afraid. They are like barking dogs hoping to frighten others before they get hurt. When they hurt, they don’t know how to get help, so they try to make themselves feel better by doing things that give them a little pleasure: sex, masturbation, drugs, pot, alcohol, etc. All of these things will make the hurt go away for a little while. But it comes back, because it just hides the hurt. It does not take it away. Therefore, you have to get another dose of medicine. So you go back for more. It usually comes back again after they have been in another tough situation that frightened them. They thought that they could not deal with it. So how do they respond, by bark again: curse, shout, rude, etc. When the barking is over, they hurt again. They feel badly. They go for more medicine: masturbation, more sex, drugs, pot alcohol, etc. It’s a cycle.
You want to help people correct themselves. Well, the only correction is to get out of the darn cycle. How does one do that? Most teens don’t know how to get out of that cycle. The only way to get out of the cycle is to develop confidence in yourself. You have to believe that you are not going to fall apart when things get tough. You have to believe that you can get through the tough days. How do these kids learn this? They learn it when they see someone else do it. That’s why Francis walked through the town. I suggest that you be like Francis. When you have a chance to do a one-on-one with someone, you can be Benedict. But you can’t be both all the time. It does not work that way. Does that help?
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
It’s extremely discouraging. This is my opinion on what you should do.