THE WORD BECAME FLESH

Monday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time, 2022

2Kgs 17:5-8, 13-15a, 18

Ps 60

Matt 7:1-5

Stop judging

The concluding statement of Jesus in today’s gospel reading (Mt 7:1-5) suggests that most of the time we don’t see clearly. Our physical sight may be good, but our capacity to see into the heart and minds of people is very limited. 

Jesus indicates that the reason we have poor insight when it comes to others is that we limit our capacity to truly see others. The only person who could see others as they were was Jesus himself because he was without sin. The fourth evangelist says of Jesus in his gospel, ‘he needed no one to testify about anyone, for he knew what was in everyone. Jesus saw beyond the actions and behavior of people into their heart, their soul, and mind. The Lord knows each of us in that deep sense, which is why he can forgive so easily. We do not know others in the way that the Lord knows us; we do not see others in the way the Lord sees us.

 Saint Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians says, ‘Now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. We see dimly, we know only in part, because, in the words of Jesus in the gospel reading, we all have the equivalent of the plank in our eye. It is a humorous but telling image. It is because our seeing and knowing of others is so limited that Jesus calls on us to be slow to judge others. Going back to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he says there, ‘Do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart’.

Let us pray: O Father, give us the humility which realizes our ignorance, admits our mistakes, recognizes our needs, welcomes advice, and accepts rebuke. Help us always to praise rather than criticize, sympathize rather than discourage, build rather than destroy, and think of people at their best rather than at their worst. Amen

+Remain blessed