10th of September

Gospel text

(Lk 6,39-42): 

Jesus offered this example, «Can a blind person lead another blind person? Surely both will fall into a ditch. A disciple is not above the master; but when fully trained, he will be like the master. So why do you pay attention to the speck in your brother's eye while you have a log in your eye and are not conscious of it? How can you say to your neighbor: ‘Friend, let me take this speck out of your eye’, when you can't remove the log in your own? You hypocrite! First remove the log from your own eye and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your neighbor's eye».

The Application

It is not a question of guiding or accompanying someone, nor of correcting a brother or sister, but a question of our willful blindness, a question of ignorance of ourselves. Since God dwells in us, self-knowledge is an imperative, in order to establish an interpersonal relationship with God. A look at our interiority, the interiority with the pure soul and our conscience that God has installed in us, can easily heal our exteriority, the fruits of our interiority.  

Paul well recognised his past mistakes, in that inwardness which was contaminated by the teachings of men, which will produce acts against God. He knew a God of law, not a God of love and forgiveness. Since his search was sincere, and his commitment positive with a fidelity to the law of Moses, God wanted to meet him and this meeting transformed him. He will always acknowledge his past with pride, for he was faithful to all that he learned. We must learn from Paul to forgive ourselves generously for our past actions. God continues to forgive us our past actions, provided, we get converted and believe in Him.

Jesus invites us to start a new life, a life with Him, in Him, through Him and for Him. We already know this loving God, who asks us to love one another as Jesus has loved us. Very often we are not faithful to all that we have learned from the Lord. Let us be sincere and faithful.

Action of the day: Know thyself, with your feelings and emotions.

Daily Quote from the Early Church Fathers:

Seeing the speck in anothers eye,

by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.

"The word hypocrite is aptly employed here (Luke 6:42, Matthew 7:5), since the denouncing of evils is best viewed as a matter only for upright persons of goodwill. When the wicked engage in it, they are like impersonators, masqueraders, hiding their real selves behind a mask, while they portray anothers character through the mask. The word hypocrites in fact signifies pretenders. Hence we ought especially to avoid that meddlesome class of pretenders who under the pretense of seeking advice undertake the censure of all kinds of vices. They are often moved by hatred and malice. Rather, whenever necessity compels one to reprove or rebuke another, we ought to proceed with godly discernment and caution. First of all, let us consider whether the other fault is such as we ourselves have never had or whether it is one that we have overcome. Then, if we have never had such a fault, let us remember that we are human and could have had it. But if we have had it and are rid of it now, let us remember our common frailty, in order that mercy, not hatred, may lead us to the giving of correction and admonition. In this way, whether the admonition occasions the amendment or the worsening of the one for whose sake we are offering it (for the result cannot be foreseen), we ourselves shall be made safe through singleness of eye. But if on reflection we find that we ourselves have the same fault as the one we are about to reprove, let us neither correct nor rebuke that one. Rather, let us bemoan the fault ourselves and induce that person to a similar concern, without asking him to submit to our correction."(excerpt from Sermon on the Mount 2.19.64)