Friday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
“Hyppo, hyppo, hyppo!!,” my teenage son likes to teasingly call me (no, not a hippopotamus) when he catches me doing the very thing I told him not to do. Maybe Jesus would use that slang if he were here now rather than, “You hypocrite!” that we read today in Luke’s gospel passage from the Sermon on the Plain. Why do we notice the splinter in our brother’s (or sister’s or spouse’s or coworker’s or parent’s or neighbor’s or enemy’s) eye, but not notice the wooden beam in our own?
We hear from St. Paul in today’s reading (from the first Letter to Timothy) and are reminded that Paul was once a “blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man” whom Jesus “mercifully treated because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief.” After his conversion experience, he changed his ways to live in accordance with the grace and mercy shown to him. He was many other things, but not a hypocrite because he had not yet come to know and believe that Jesus is God. But what about us?
When we who profess to be Christians act in opposition to the teachings of Jesus, when we “know better,” then it seems pretty clear that we are indeed hypocrites. How often are we set on removing the splinter in the other person’s eye, while not even noticing the “wooden beam” in our own?!
This week, let us ask the Holy Spirit for the grace to become aware of and remove that which is obstructing our own “vision.” Especially before even attempting to judge, point out or remove the other person’s splinter. And let us “bless the Lord who counsels” us; for with clearer vision (as today’s Psalm 16 reminds us), God “will show me the path of life, fullness of joys in (God’s) presence….”
—Eileen Miller