Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time ‘C’, Last Sunday before Lent (Quinquagesima)

This the last Sunday before Lent Jesus draws our attention to practical points of Christian living and challenges us to use our words as He used his in His preaching and healing ministry – to heal, to restore, and to bring back life, joy and hope. Today’s readings also instruct us to share our Christian life, love, and spiritual health by our words, and to avoid gossiping about, and passing impulsive, thoughtless and pain-inflicting judgments on others, often damaging their good reputation and causing irreparable harm.

The First Reading, taken from the Book of Sirach, teaches that what is inside us is revealed through our conversation – as the grain and husks are separated in a farmer’s sieve, as the quality of the metal is revealed in the potter’s fire, and as the size and quality of a tree’s fruit reveal the care it has received from the one who planted it. Sirach’s teaching serves as an excellent preview for today’s Gospel, which reminds us, when we’re feeling judgmental, to think before we speak because what comes out of our mouth reveals our heart.

The Responsorial Psalm (Ps 92) advises us to spend our time praising and thanking God for all His blessings.

In the Second Reading St. Paul advises the Corinthian Christians “to be firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain,” instead of wasting time on useless and sinful conversations, which bring punishment instead of the victory of resurrection and eternal reward.

In today’s Gospel pericope, taken from the Sermon on the Plain given in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus condemns our careless, malicious and rash judgments about the behavior, feelings, motives or actions of others by using the humorous examples of one blind man leading another blind man and one man with a log stuck in his eye, trying to remove a tiny speck from another’s eye.

We should avoid judging others because no one, except God, is good enough to judge others. Only God sees the whole truth, and only He can read the human heart… Only He has the ability, right and authority to judge us.

Also, we don’t see all the facts or circumstances or the power of the temptation which has led a person to do something evil. We are often biased in our judgment of others, and total fairness cannot be expected from us, especially when we are judging those near or dear to us. We have no right to judge because we have the same faults as the one, we are judging and often in a greater degree. Abraham Lincoln said that the only one who has the right to criticize is the one who has the heart to help.