THE WORD BECAME FLESH

Monday of Twelveth week in the Ordinary time, 2021

Gen 12:1-9

Ps

Matt 7:1-5

Do not judge…

We live in a society which tends to rush to judgement very quickly. When some damning report is issued there is an immediate search for people to blame. It can be very easy for those who have never been in a particular situation to blame others for their actions in that situation. Condemning others can come all too easy to us. 

The gospel reading this morning (Mt 7:1-5) suggests that Jesus was very aware of that. He warns against rushing to premature judgement, ‘do not judge and you will not be judged’. Perhaps Jesus was more aware than we are of the danger that in judging others we can easily get it very wrong. He understood that our limited vision can make it very difficult for us to judge fairly. 

Our limited vision comes from the many failings in ourselves. That seems to be the point of the humorous image in the second part of the gospel reading. We cannot attempt to take a splinter out of the eye of someone else while all the time we have a plank in our own eye. We need to attend to the plank in our own eye first. We need to put our energies into renewing ourselves rather than condemning others. Only then can we begin to see as the Lord sees.

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

+Remain blessed