EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

[cappie]

In today’s readings we hear Jesus speaking in Galilee as well as a Jewish sage named Sirach writing in Jerusalem more than a century earlier. The two of them touch upon a single truth: The words that come out of us make known the hidden thoughts within us. Speech reveals the secrets of the heart.

Sirach,  from our First Reading, relates the application of three processes over time to create a  property of quality of a human being

1). The first is the image of shaking a sieve to reveal the husks from the kernel which is similar to faults revealed when one speaks.

The Bible and all of the ancient world viewed the mouth as the collector of words, articulator of speech, and the doorway to the soul. e.g. from our Gospel, the splinter represents a slight sin or fault, while the 'beam' stands for a serious sin or a great fault.

Situation: Your child says, “I got a bad report card.” The splinter: The teacher is weird. The wooden beam: What were my study habits like?”

The question underlying the saying the splinter and the beam is that of reproof or correcting others. The rabbis recognized that if one saw his fellow commit a sin, he must reprove him, and thus Endeavor to bring him back to the better way of life.  However, as Jesus tells us, one who takes upon himself to reprove another should first look to it that he is not guilty of a greater fault than that of the one he would correct. Jesus famously upbraided the religious leaders of his day for their hypocrisy, as those who would look to the splinter in their brother’s eye while failing to observe the plank in their own would be a hypocrite.

 As Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said, “It is a law of nature that no one ever gets his second wind until he has used up his first wind. So, it is with knowledge. Only when we practice the moral truths which we already know will a deeper understanding of those truths and a fuller revelation come to us. Each new height the mind reveals must be captured by the will before greater heights come into view.”

Correcting others with care that is only borne of knowledge and experience from past struggles and failures is the message. Only after that, Jesus encourages us to use our clearer sight to correct and evangelize others.

2). The second process mentioned in our First Reading was that faults revealed when one speaks-

 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote, “God does not have a fixed plan that he must carry out; on the contrary he has many ways of finding a person and even turning their wrong ways into right ways.”

There is saying “live and let live” regarding not bothering or criticizing people who are sincerely seeking God in accordance with their conscience.

Their personality or type of spirituality or even lay ministry might not be your cup of tea, but, in time, like pottery coming out of the furnace, the fruits of holiness will be either known to all or remain half-baked.
Time will tell.

3). The last process mentioned in our First Reading is about how the quality of a tree determines how good its fruit. There is a saying “check the fruits, fix the roots.” The tree makes the fruit, the fruit doesn’t make the tree.

The term "discernment of spirits" is found once explicitly in the Bible, at 1 Corinthians 12:10. Paul is writing about "spiritual gifts." He lists nine examples of these and makes three points concerning these variety of gifts: they have a single source ("the same Spirit," "the same Lord," "the same God who inspires them all in everyone," and their end is "the common good."

 Why discernment of spirits is so practical can be seen by St. Benedict, who makes discretio a typical Benedictine virtue.   St. Benedict says, temper all things that the strong may still have something to long after, and the weak may not draw back

In his life Jesus spoke words that brought healing, hope, forgiveness, mercy, and acceptance. His words came from his loving, compassionate heart. He spoke good words. He spoke Good News!
 
This Sunday we are challenged to consider our words. Those words reveal the condition of our hearts.

 
 

[Guest]

Wow!  Thank you.