Monday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

“Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye,
but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?” (Mt 7:3)

In his book “Interior Freedom,” Fr. Jacques Philippe made this profound remark: “At times of struggle we need also to recall the conversion we should be concerned about is not our neighbor’s but our own. Only if we take our own conversion seriously do we stand any chance of seeing our neighbor converted too” (p. 75). Jesus’s words (and Fr. Jacque’s) challenge us to look within for the root of our distress when we become fixated on the faults and foibles of our brothers and sisters. We unknowingly cause ourselves a great deal of inner suffering because we are unable to accept the reality of another’s weakness. And oftentimes, it is our own shortcomings that we cannot recognize. It is the proverbial image that those we find it most difficult to tolerate are holding up a mirror in which we view the same failings within ourselves.

How can we be freed from this trap of being judgmental? In today’s responsorial psalm we read this beautiful passage:

See, the eyes of the Lord are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness,
To deliver them from death
and preserve them in spite of famine. (Ps 33:18-19).

It is the Lord who loves us, who has chosen us as his own people, as his beloved daughters and sons, who frees us from our worst enemy—ourselves. It is by total trust in His undeserved gift of merciful love that we find interior peace and freedom from the harm we do to ourselves by judging others.

Reflection by Br. Michael Marcotte, OSB