St Vincent de Paul Society England and Wales



Reflection adapted from Living Space commentary for Gospel of 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time (C) Ecclesiasticus 27: 5-8; 1 Corinthians 15: 54-58; Luke 6: 39-45Full commentary can be found in Living Space section of Sacred Space: sacredspace.ie“Jesus told this parable: ‘Can one blind man guide another? Surely both will fall into a pit? The disciple is not superior to his teacher; the fully trained disciple will always be like his teacher. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother: Brother, let me take out the splinter that is in your eye, when you cannot see the plank in your own? Hypocrite! Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take out the splinter that is in your brother’s eye. There is no sound tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again a rotten tree that produces sound fruit. For every tree can be told by its own fruit: people do not pick figs from thorns, nor gather grapes from brambles. A good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart; a bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness. For a man’s words flow out of what fills his heart.’ “ Luke 6: 39-45 Jesus does not warn against judgment itself, but negative, destructive judgment. There are times when we are expected to give constructive, helpful criticism. It is not unusual to hear people talk with great authority on things of which they know very little. People who never open a Bible, seldom go to church, and may not even be Christians often have no hesitation in saying what is wrong with the Church. This does not mean the Church has no faults or that faults should not be highlighted. But it does mean that one should speak from genuine knowledge to the people who can do something about it. The same applies to everything else we like to pass judgment on. We can often find ourselves gossiping, pulling other people to bits. This can be a form of self- defence, a kind of pre-emptive strike. We may feel inadequate and insecure and try to even things out by pulling down people we feel are better than us. Jesus says that everything depends on the inner person and not the outward appearance. Hypocrisy will not long go undetected. Once we open our mouths we reveal ourselves. When we gossip we often tell people a lot more about ourselves than those we are condemning. Today’s Gospel is telling us not to be too quick to see the shortcomings of others if we are unable to see and accept our own. We may spend a lot of time talking about what is wrong with other people – in their absence, but may not be prepared to bring our grievances for open dialogue with the people concerned.We also can live under the illusion that if other people change then we will be happy, but why should other people change just for me? Perhaps I need to change. I can be in charge of my own life and stop trying to change others. As Fr Anthony de Mello says: “When I change, my whole world changes” and “Attitude is everything.”- my attitude, that is. I can learn to be totally accepting of reality, of the way people are. I can be fully myself and let other people too be themselves. Then I am no longer worried about planks in my own eyes or in others’. I can judge myself by the standards of Jesus: a good tree bears good fruit. “A person’s words flow out of what fills their heart. “ And the words – fruits of a good tree- are full of warmth and affirmation, encouragement and compassion as well as occasional constructive challenging – a much better recipe than a life spent in griping and sniping. Pause for thought – Many groups suffer from competitiveness and critical attitudes among their members. How can we guard against this in the SVP? ................
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