WORD 2day: Monday, 12th week in Ordinary time
June 20, 2022: 2 Kings 17: 5-8, 13-15, 18; Matthew 7: 1-5
The first need is to be self critical. When I find something wrong in the other, charity requires that I first become critical of myself. That is, seeing the log that is in your eye before offering to remove the splinter from your neighbour's. Once I am aware that I too possess the same, or a similar, or a bigger weakness or a vice, my attitude changes completely. I am in a position to better understand, and act with prudence and humility.
The second need is to set the home tidy first. "Do not do like they do" ... that was the instruction that the Lord had given the people when they had to come into contact with other nations during the period of their wanderings. St. Paul too has a similar warning for us, isn't it? Writing to the Romans, he tells us: do not be conformed to the world, instead be transformed in the Lord (cf. Rom 12). Let me set my life, my behaviours, my attitudes, my priorities, my choices right first... the rest will slowly fall in place. The first step, Gandhiji would say, towards changing the world, is to be the change that you wish to see there!
In short, the Word invites us today to live our daily lives conscious of who we are, what we are called for and where we are bound to! Let us take our faith seriously and live by sound self-critical conscious choices on a daily basis. The Word shall be the lamp to that path!