EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
(Sirach 27:5-8; I Corinthians 15:54-58; Luke 6:39-45)
The Gospel today helps us prepare for the great annual
retreat that the Church offers. During Lent we set out for a deeper spiritual
life. Our goal is to be freer, happier, more inclined to act like Jesus, our
companion on the journey. As is almost always the
case with travel, the Lenten journey proceeds best when it is well planned.
The Gospel passage suggests the purpose of the Lenten
journey when it says: “The disciple is not superior to his teacher; but when fully
trained, he will be like his teacher.” Jesus is inviting us to learn from him.
We did say “retreat,” but Lent is not about separating ourselves from daily
activities. Rather, we are to live more aware of the presence of Jesus in our
lives.
The gospel points out two areas of life that almost always
require improvement. First, it urges us to examine the defects that prevent us
from fulfilling our responsibilities. These are the “beams” in Jesus’ parable
that distort our vision so that we do not treat our neighbors with justice, our
children with wisdom, and everyone with appropriate love.
Some of these defects are individual. Greed, the desire to accumulate
things, for example, affects not everyone. Another defect that affects many but
not all is lust, the desire for illicit pleasures of the flesh. There are other
individual beams, but two can be found in the eyes of almost everyone – pride and
sloth.
It is difficult to talk about pride because it has a
positive sense. However, when we consider pride as an exaggerated esteem for
self or as a fixation on oneself first and foremost, pride becomes a vice. This
type of pride deserves our attention during Lent.
The second beam that infects most people’s eyes is laziness
in the spiritual life. Very few people strive to become saints. It's not cool.
However, if we believe in an afterlife and hope to enjoy it, we must make a
continual effort to please God.
Virtues act as washes to remove the beams from our eyes.
That's why promoting virtue is our second focus during Lent. In the gospel
Jesus refers to good fruit coming from good trees. Virtues make us into
productive trees. More than repeated actions, virtue is mastery over our
actions so that they have creative and profitable results. There are many
virtues, but we will mention just a few particularly useful for removing the
beams in our eyes.
Fortitude enables us to overcome laziness in the face of a
challenge. Students need fortitude during exam week, and so do saints in the
ongoing struggle to pray and do the right thing. Temperance moderates desires
for material things, whether sex, alcohol, or home furnishings. It indicates
when we have sufficiency and when we are just indulging our cravings. Finally, the virtue of justice directs us to give to each his or her due.
It thwarts pride by recognizing our families, our friends and teachers, our
society, and God himself as participants in any success we have achieved.
Lent begins this Wednesday with the distribution of ashes.
Now is the time for us disciples of Jesus, to identify the beams impeding our
view of him and to plan how to remove them. May God bless us in the effort.
