23rd Week, Friday, Sept 10

  23rd Week, Friday, Sept 10

1 Tim 1:1-2, 12-14 / Luke 6:39-42

I was an arrogant blasphemer; But God forgave me.

 One of George Washington’s first tasks after taking command of the American army in the Revolutionary War was to expel Captain John Callender for cowardice during the Battle of Bunker Hill. Callender was convicted, demoted, and dismissed from the army. Later he quietly reenlisted as a private. He went on to fight with such heroism in the Battle of Long Island that Washington restored him to his rank of captain. 

Paul testifies in today’s reading that God treated him with similar compassion and forgiveness. Like Callender, Paul went on to become a hero in his work for the spread of God’s kingdom.

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Do we realize that we, too, can go on to do great things for God’s kingdom, even after having failed miserably in serving God in the past? “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea.” Frederick William Faber

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Paul pours out his gratitude for what the grace and mercy of God has made him. God’s grace has perhaps not appeared to us in a way as dramatic as in Paul’s life, but, even though we have not been thrown off a horse by God’s lightning irrupting in our lives, we have very much to be thankful for, and we too are what we are by God’s love. What better way is there to express our gratitude than the eucharist?

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When we want to send well-wishes to someone, we would say things like "wishing you blue skies and everything nice" or "may you be healthy, wealthy and wise" and other similar nice things. Those are well-wishes, and we sincerely wish for someone what we ourselves would want for ourselves. 

In the 1st reading, what St. Paul wished for Timothy was something profound and unique when he said: wishing you grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Christ Jesus our Lord. We might think that it was a rather overly religious kind of wishing and only religious superiors and bishops and cardinals who use those kinds of words. 

But when we think about it, it is precisely those grace and mercy that we need most in our lives. It is by God's mercy that we are spared the punishment from our sins, and it is something that we don't deserve and it is only God who grants us His mercy unconditionally. 

It is by God's grace that we are saved and the fact is that we can't save ourselves from our sins. Only God can do that for us and He did it through Jesus our Saviour. And it is by God's grace and mercy that we won't pick on the splinter in the eyes of others because we know we have a plank in our own eyes. 

Indeed, God grants us His grace and mercy unconditionally. It is something that we don't deserve or have a right to it. If we can see that, then God's grace and mercy will give us the peace that is the greatest blessing from God. 

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The gospel of today has everything to do with seeing: blind people cannot show the way to others, wounded eyes distort what they see in others and cannot see their own defects. We should have a bit of “sympathetic” blindness to the faults of others. And let us look first into our own hearts; this is perhaps the way to love others a bit more.

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These words are addressed to the apostles. Jesus is training them. They are meant to be leaders in the community and teachers. As leaders, they cannot be blind; as teachers, they cannot be ignorant. As teachers, they have to equip themselves with the knowledge their master has and wants them to communicate. No teacher can lead his pupils beyond what he himself knows. They must learn to see. Words are not enough in a leader. He needs the full vision if he wants to be a leader. He must be able to make others see. A good leader and a good teacher have a positive attitude to those they lead and teach. Their faults cannot destroy the respect he has for them. The leader and teacher are more vulnerable, if people are able to point a finger at them and accuse them. Their task is to remove the faults, to take off all that keeps their charges away from Christ. If, however, the faults they point out are also their own, their teaching loses effectiveness. The audience must have smiled at this humorous way of putting it.

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 Prayer

Lord our God, you are just and holy, and yet you are patient and tolerant with us. We are but slow-learning students of our one Teacher, Jesus Christ. He saw people’s faults, but he had come not to condemn but to forgive and save. Give us clear eyes to look into our own hearts and consciences, but dim them with the shades of love when we see the faults of those around us. We ask you this through Christ our Lord. Amen