“Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.”
Leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. The instruction is concrete and action-oriented: leave the gift, go, reconcile, then come back and offer. The gift left at the altar is not abandoned but waiting — the worship will happen, but only after the relational repair that makes the worship genuine. The sequence communicates the priority: reconciliation before religious performance, not because the religious performance is unimportant but because it is hollow without the relational integrity that should underlie it. Amos 5:21–24 records God's rejection of Israel's religious festivals precisely because they were conducted by people who practiced injustice — Matthew 5:24 is the personal-scale application of the prophetic principle.
Church Fathers on Matthew 5:24
If it be not lawful to be angry with a brother, or to say to him Racha, or Thou fool, much less is it lawful to keep in the memory any thing which might convert anger into hate.
It is not, If thou hast ought against thy brother; but 'If thy brother has ought against thee,' that the necessity of reconciliation may be more imperative.
But if it is he that hath done you the wrong, and yet you be the first to seek reconciliation, you shall have a great reward.
Read all 10 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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