SPECK IN THE EYE
Memorial of Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Scriptural Readings: 1 Timothy 1:1-2, 12-14; Psalms 16:1b-2a+5, 7-8, 11; Luke 6:39-42
My dear encountered couples:
We are all familiar with that “speck in the eye” advice that Jesus is giving. We’ve heard it many times. Maybe somebody has pointed it out to us when we are running at the mouth criticizing someone else. “Clean up your own act first,” we’re told. Then we might become more qualified to clean up somebody else’s.
Parents are particularly made aware of their own faults when they get into correcting their children. Unless the children are very sensitive to their parents’ feelings they will be among the first to bring to their parents’ attention the faults of those very same parents who are correcting them. If you try to tell your children not to drink or smoke, take drugs, or jump into bed with any Tom, Dick, or Rosie, then you had better listen to your own advice. Children see what their parents do. And they suspect more than in years past. Television has exposed the weaknesses and sins of the adult world. Everyone has been made suspect, even Santa Claus. That makes the advice Jesus gives us even more important:
“Why look at the speck in your brother’s eye when you miss the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck from your eye,’ yet fail yourself to see the plank lodged in your own? Hypocrite, remove the plank lodged in your own eye first; then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Some of us find ourselves in positions of responsibility which require we advise and correct others. Pardon me a moment, please, I think I feel something in my eye.
