Chapter Twenty-Seven
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
How Concerned the Abbot Should Be about the Excommunicated
LET THE Abbot show all care and concern towards offending brethren because “they that are in health need not a physician, but they that are sick.” (Matt. 9:12). Therefore, like a wise physician he ought to use every opportunity to send secret consolers—namely, discreet elderly brethren—to console the wavering brother, as it were, in secret, and induce him to make humble satisfaction; and let them cheer him up “lest he be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow” (2 Cor. 2:7); but, as the same Apostle says, “confirm your charity towards him” (2 Cor. 2:8); and let everyone pray for him.
The Abbot must take the utmost pains and strive with all prudence and zeal so that none of the flock entrusted to him perish. For the Abbot must know that he has taken upon himself the care of infirm souls, not a tyranny over the strong. Let him fear the threat of the Prophet by which the Lord says: “What ye saw to be fat, that ye took to yourselves, and what was diseased ye cast away.” (Ezek. 34:3–4). And let him imitate the loving example of the Good Shepherd, who, leaving the ninety-nine sheep on the mountains, went to seek the one that had gone astray. He had such pity on its weakness that He mercifully placed it on His sacred shoulders and thus brought back to the fold. (Cf. Luke 15:5).