Sunday Reflections

 Eighth Sunday in Ordinary time (Year C)

Sir 27:4-7; 1Cor 15:54-58; Luke 6:39-45

image courtesy: Google

A 24-year-old boy seeing out from the train’s window shouted…“Dad, look the trees are going behind!”  Dad smiled and a young couple sitting nearby, looked at the 24 year Old’s childish behaviour with pity, suddenly he again exclaimed… “Dad, look the clouds are running with us!” The couple couldn’t resist and said to the old man… “Why don’t you take your son to a good doctor?” The old man smiled and said…“I did and we are just coming from the hospital, my son was blind from birth, he just got his eyes today.”

The first reading is taken from the Book of Sirach. It teaches that what is inside us is revealed through our conversation – as the grain and husks are separated in a farmer’s sieve, as the quality of the shaped clay is revealed in the potter’s fire, and as the size and quality of a tree’s fruit reveal the care it has received from the planter. Sirach’s teaching serves as an excellent preview for today’s Gospel, which reminds us, when we’re feeling judgmental, to think before we speak because what comes out of our mouth reveals our heart.

The Gospel of the day focuses on the area of personal holiness. Honestly today all of us are weak on holiness. We would rather point out a dozen sins in the life of someone else than take an honest look at the sin in our own life. We love to point the finger at others, but when someone points it at us, or when the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, we are quick to defend our actions and make excuses for our failures.

Last Sunday’s Gospel told us not to judge or we would be judged ourselves. This does not mean that we are never to criticize other people.   ‘Criticize’ comes from Greek to make a rational judgment. So we speak of a film or drama ‘critic’ who may indeed tear production to pieces or, on the other hand, may praise it to the skies giving full credit to it.  We have here the three distinctive unrelated sayings of Jesus: blind leading the blind, the splinter in the companion’s eye, the good tree and its fruits.  What is being forbidden by Jesus is not judgment as to such but negative, destructive judgment. There are times when we are expected to give constructive, helpful criticism.  We cannot pass judgment unless we have some vision and understanding. How can the blind, those without understanding, presume to give leadership to others who are blind? Jesus asks us. The result is inevitable: “Both will fall into the pit.”

God sees the heart and always will. We may put on a great show of words and actions, but it is what is at the root of these that is so visible to God. Focusing on the faults of others, no matter how true, take the focus off our own. Therefore the personal holiness is the inevitable aspect of our life.

As Fr Tony de Mello used to say, “when I change, my whole world changes”. Not only that, but when I change, other people are likely to change but, and even if they do not, my attitude towards them will not be the same. To quote Fr de Mello again, “Attitude is everything” - my attitude.

Happy Sunday