Pope's Morning Homily: Look in the Mirror Before Judging Others
Author: Deborah Castellano Lubov | Source: ZENIT (https://zenit.org)
(ZENIT, Vatican City, June 20, 2016).- Look in the mirror before judging others.
The Pope gave this advice during his homily at morning Mass in the Casa Santa Marta today, reported Vatican Radio, as he pointed out that God’s judgment is distinguished from ours by “mercy,” not “omnipotence.”
Because judgment belongs only to God, the Pope explained, “If we do not want to be judged, we should not judge others.”
Drawing inspiration from today’s Gospel, the Pope said, “All of us want the Lord to look upon us with kindness” on Judgment Day and hope He “will forget the many bad things we have done in life.”
Time to Look in Mirror
Therefore, if “you judge others constantly,” he warned, “with the same measure you shall be judged.” The Lord, he said, therefore asks us to look in the mirror:
“Look in the mirror, but not to put on makeup to hide the wrinkles. No, no, no, that’s not the advice! Look in the mirror to look at yourself as you are. ‘Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye and do not notice the log that is in your own eye?’ Or, how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is still in your eye? And how does the Lord look at us then, when we do this? One word: ‘hypocrite.’ First take the log out of your eye, and then you shall see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye’.”
Don’t Judge Others, Pray for Them
The Argentine Pope observed that here, “We see that the Lord gets ‘a little angry,'” for He calls us ‘hypocrites’ when we try to put ourselves in His place, like Adam and Eve did.
The serpent persuaded Adam and Eve to defy God, saying, ‘If you eat this, you’ll be like Him,’ Francis recalled.
“For this reason,” Pope Francis underscored, “being judgmental is very ugly. Judgment belongs only to God, to Him alone!” the Pope exclaimed. It is for us to “love,” to “understand, to pray for others when we see things that are not good” said the Pope, inviting us to talk kindly to others so that they may learn from their mistakes: “But never judge. Never. And this is hypocrisy, if we judge.”
Only God Can Judge
The Pope warned that if we judge others, we “are putting ourselves in the place of God” with our “poor” and “never true judgment.”
The Pope then pondered: “But can’t our judgment be like the Lord’s?” since “God is Almighty and we are not? ”
“No,” Francis responded, “because our judgment is lacking mercy. And when God judges, He judges with mercy.”
“Let us think today about what the Lord says to us: Do not judge, lest you be judged; the measure… by which we judge will be the same that will be used for us; and, third, let us look in the mirror before judging. ‘But this fellow does this … that fellow does that…’ ‘But, wait a minute …’ I look in the mirror and then think. On the contrary, I’ll be a hypocrite if I put myself in the place of God and, also, my judgement is poor judgment.”
Noting that human judgement lacks the mercy of the Lord’s judgment, Francis concluded, praying, “May the Lord make us understand these things.”