The Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time, February 27, 2022

I am sufficiently well that I just spent a few days at home with my sister.  Thanks again for your prayers!

Luke 6, 39–45

Jesus told his disciples a parable, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye. 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 thorn bushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles. A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass is a collection of the Lord’s sayings.  St. Luke calls the following a parable: “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?”  This may seem a commonplace, but the question raises questions.  Did the blind person deliberately seek out another blind person to lead him?  Did a person offer to lead him not knowing that he himself was blind?  Did the blind person have no one else to lead him?  Where did he want to go?  The blind person is one without faith.  If he follows another faithless person, both will fall into hell.  It is inevitable.

“No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher.”  The Lord himself had no teacher, and this was well known at the time: “And the Jews wondered, saying: How does this man know letters, having never learned?” (John 7, 15).  Even so, he teaches his disciples that they will never grow wiser than he, nor anyone else.  The disciple can become like the teacher, but no more.  All those who teach what is contrary to what he teaches is blind.  

“Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye?”  The “splinter” and “beam” could be moral or doctrinal.  Now, a splinter may fall into a person’s eye, but a beam going into an eye requires negligence or deliberate action, either by the self or another.  The Lord warns that a person who has left the Faith has no standing for assisting someone who struggles with Church teaching or making moral choices.  “You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.”  We remove the beams from our eyes by returning to the Faith and through absolution in the Sacrament of Penance.  

“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 thorn bushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles.”  This may also seem a commonplace, but how often we fail to apply the lesson!  We are attracted by the apparent beauty of a person, philosophy, or movement without examining whether it is true or not, and this we can see by its application or “fruits”.  We might wonder why we so often fail to do this, whether we find something appealing because of our own inward turmoil or  through peer pressure or through wishful thinking.

“A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”  We find this saying only in Luke’s Gospel.  It is related to the saying about the trees and their fruit.  A person may seem unattractive, unusual, or backward and yet may act with great charity.  We can tell something of what is in the person’s heart by his actions, especially over a period of time.  The Lord himself seemed primitive, uneducated, and smacked of the back country to the sophisticated Sanhedrin.  We should be careful not to dismiss a saint simply because he does not look like what we think a saint should look like.