From the responsorial psalm: “It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praise to your name, Most High, To proclaim your kindness at dawn and your faithfulness throughout the night. Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.”
A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke (6:39-45, today’s readings)
“A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles.”
In the first reading, Sirach says, “The fruit of a tree shows the care it has had.” Jesus tells his disciples some parables to expand on the truth contained in this idea, including spiritual blindness, or a deeply rooted lack of accountability. The blind are not capable of leading the blind, and if there is a beam of judgment in our own eye, that must be removed before we can see out of God-given mercy the splinter in another’s eye. Jesus’ instruction to remove the beam from one’s own eye before addressing the speck in another’s eye is a teaching on the importance of self-awareness and accountability. What does self-examination reveal about our motivations and intentions? Any good fruit in us that “shows the care we have had” reveals the gift of God’s mercy alive in our hearts.
God, you alone are just and know the hearts of your people. Judgment is not mine to wield, and the word of life will come to fulfillment in the final judgment. Saint Paul reminds me to keep this in mind, that life leads in only one direction in hope of the resurrection: “When this which is corruptible clothes itself with incorruptibility and this which is mortal clothes itself with immortality, then the word that is written shall come about.” Guide me, Lord, to shine like a light in the world as I hold on to the word of life.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.