Our loving father only wants his children to be obedient and to follow his laws, which were given to us out of love so that we will always live ordered lives according to his will. But if we choose our own way and turn our backs on him, do we expect no repercussions for our choices? If we have chosen evil over good, if we have chosen sinful lives, then we can only expect that sin will consume us, which will lead to our own destruction.
We are told in today’s gospel not to judge others. Perhaps we judge others according to our own standards, and yet we ourselves are not living to those standards. If we must compare ourselves with others, perhaps we should compare how much we have loved and put that love into action for the well-being of the least of our brethren.
Let’s always choose to love and not to judge, and to try to outdo one another by how much we love others. Amen.
Saints John Fisher, Bishop, and Thomas More, Martyrs, Saint Paulinus of Nola, Bishop pray for us…
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First reading
2 Kings 17:5-8,13-15,18
There was none left, but the tribe of Judah only
The king of Assyria invaded the whole country and, coming to Samaria, laid siege to it for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah on the Habor, a river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
This happened because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshipped other gods, they followed the practices of the nations that the Lord had dispossessed for them.
And yet through all the prophets and all the seers, the Lord had given Israel and Judah this warning, ‘Turn from your wicked ways and keep my commandments and my laws in accordance with the entire Law I laid down for your fathers and delivered to them through my servants the prophets.’ But they would not listen, they were more stubborn than their ancestors had been who had no faith in the Lord their God. They despised his laws and the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the warnings he had given them. They pursued emptiness, and themselves became empty through copying the nations round them although the Lord had ordered them not to act as they did. For this, the Lord was enraged with Israel and thrust them away from him. There was none left but the tribe of Judah only.
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Gospel
Matthew 7:1-5
Do not judge, and you will not be judged
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; because the judgements you give are the judgements you will get, and the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own? How dare you say to your brother, “Let me take the splinter out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own? Hypocrite! Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.’
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