8th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sirach 27: 4-7 1 Corinthians: 15: 54-58 Luke 6: 39-45
If we want God’s blessing in our lives to permeate all that we do and all that we say, we must yield to his way of looking at things, to his understanding of life, and the persons with whom life is shared because it is often vastly antithetical to our own. God’s reality stands in stark contrast to our perceptions and inclinations because mercy, not judgment, is at the heart of God’s encounter with us. Mercy is the only acceptable response to our feeble overtures to love’s mandate “to love one another” even when confronted by wrong doing. It is what Pope Francis has penned a “mercying” stance to life that enables our full participation in a reconciled world. As human beings we have an unmistakable propensity to mitigate and excuse ourselves of wrongdoing while simultaneously feeling justified in blaming others for their transgressions. There is little doubt that spiritual and emotional blindness is at the heart of such judgment.
Jesus is very clear when he proposes that it is only in recognizing our own sinfulness that we can be instrumental in dealing with the harsh realities of a world that plagues our human condition and relegates it to a life completely separated from the beautiful and relational gift of reconciling forgiveness. It has been said that only a good heart can produce good fruit, and it is by the fruit of our personal tree of life that we are judged. For one to say, “I never forgive, and I never forget,” one must hope that he/she never sins. We need God’s mercy because of our sinfulness, and we must share God’s mercy at what could be termed the heart level. Only in following Christ’s admonition to remove the log out of our own eye before trying to remove the speck in another’s can we be assured that this is indeed an indication that God has been quietly working in the clay of our lives to provide a grace that is beyond our comprehension.
Borrowing from a literary perspective, we see in Dostoevsky’s classic work The Brothers Karamazov that Ivan, the main character, represents the spiteful punishment and retribution of the world’s recognition of justice. We see that Ivan’s justice, as portrayed in a need for retaliation, stands in implacable opposition to Christ’s gospel of mercy. Christ sees justice as an understanding that is signified as reconciliation, forgiving love, and the hopeful promise of infinite mercy for the sinner who repents. “For the Russian novelist, “what distinguishes the City of God from the City of Man is the impartation of divine mercy.”
It can so readily be emphasized that “we are indeed a summation of what we say,” for it is our words that reveal the attitudes of our heart. If we wish to judge the validity of our own character we must listen to what we say rather than what we do. Our attitudes toward others should always speak of a love and forgiveness that we extend to them regardless of their inadequacies, and conversely, our attitude toward ourselves must be one of uncompromising honesty. We can easily justify our actions and grant excuses for our faults, but an honest appraisal of our hearts is revealed by the fruits of virtue and the moral certainty with which we direct our lives. Thomas Fuller summarizes the value of a heart united to the “Giver of all love and all grace to the God who forgives and forgets.”
“When the heart is afire, some sparks may fly out of our mouths.” This is not to question whether our words determine salvation or condemnation, but we are still responsible for the words that we say. “Believing in Jesus Christ is the only reality that gives us eternal life. We get to heaven by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.” Following a sinless Jesus, we must question our own truth in aspiring to the spiritual value in our words and deeds. If we honestly evaluate the character and tone of the words we speak, would we find that they “register like acid on litmus paper or yield the sweet presence of a person secure in God’s care!” And so, be aware of the implications in the statements “the blind leading the blind,” or “by their fruits you will know them” and “it is mercy, not judgment that I desire.”
Sr. Anne Daniel Young, OP
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