+FROM THE FULLNESS OF THE HEART THE MOUTH SPEAKS 8TH Sun.(C)
There is a lot of polarization going on in our society today and it seems to me that our gospel does a wonderful job of addressing just this thing. It is so easy for us to see the splinter in our brother’s or sister’s eye and not be aware of the beam in our own eye. We can even begin to define ourselves or others by what we find fault with them rather than by all the good that is in them.
The wooden beam in one’s own eye is the way we look for and condemn the faults in another rather than be honest about the effects, the fruits of our own words or actions. If we are truly loving, truly Christian and appreciative of our wives or husbands and children, or monks of their brothers, then we draw the very best out of them, we create a loving climate around them where they can truly become themselves as children of God.
When we fail to deal with the wooden beam in our own eye, then we create an atmosphere of fear and tension. When we spend time finding fault with others rather than see the good in them, we block their potential for living as children of God.
A good person, Jesus tells us, out of the store of goodness in his or her heart, produces good. And our mouths are what reveal what’s really going on deep down in our hearts. If we want to really know what’s going on inside us, we have only to be aware of what comes out of our mouths. As monks have learned to grow in a lot of self-knowledge if we are attentive to our speech.
If our corruptible nature is to clothe itself with incorruptibility, if we are to be fully devoted to the work of the Lord as St Paul invites us in the 2nd reading, then we must allow Christ life to live in us.
Of ourselves, the wooden beam blinds us to the work of God all around us and in our own hearts but as we allow Christ to live in us, our eyes are opened and we carry on God’s saving work in our families, in our communities, in every aspect of society or world we live in.