Planks and Specks
Fri. 23rd Week Year 1
Lk 6, 39-42
A number of years ago when I was novice mistress, I was
peacefully writing at my desk one day when a novice burst into my office
exclaiming, “I can’t stand it! I can’t
STAND it! I CAN’T STAND IT!” “What’s the matter?” I then listened in open-mouthed wonder to a
long diatribe against a fellow novice which accurately described in remarkable
detail the outstanding faults of the very novice who stood before me. Why is it that we get so upset over the
faults of other people? Sometimes
because they are a wonderful distraction from our own. We especially like to denounce our own faults
that we find in our fellow human beings.
It is so painful to admit our shortcomings and so difficult to dislodge
them. What a relief it is to be able to
abhor them in someone else and to generously offer assistance in correcting
them. Yet, we have no power to correct
anyone’s faults but our own. And we have
no qualification for trying to give anyone advice that we have not tested on
our own selves! As our Lord put it, let
us remove the plank from our eye first and then we can see clearly to help our
brothers or sisters remove the specks from their eyes. But an interesting thing happens in the
process. When we work hard to correct
ourselves and we discover how hard it is, we become more patient and forbearing
with the faults of our neighbors. We are
all sinners together. And we begin to
suspect that perhaps some of the things we get so upset about really are not
all that important after all.
Comments