Psalm 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16
1 Corinthians 15:54-58
Luke 6:39-45 Full Readings
A Good Tree
Brethren, today's central message, especially from the first reading and the gospel, is that the good tree bears good fruits, and obviously no good fruits come from a bad tree. This is how an authentic Christian too can be judged. A genuine Christian will be seen by his fruits: how one lives his Christian life, his way of talking and behaving, and how one is able to live in harmony, peace, and love of not only himself but also his fellow neighbours. These are the fruits of an authentic Christian. One of the important ways of knowing if one is a good tree or a bad tree is through speech. The wise sage of Jerusalem tells us that we should not praise anyone before he or she speaks. This is how to judge how one is. One shall surely be known from his fruits, especially from his or her speech.
Our invitation today is that we should become a good tree and so avoiding bad fruits. It's when we become a good fruit that we will be able to give a good example to others. If we want people to get inspired by who we are and even by our religion as Christians, we must work daily to become good trees, for our fruits will indeed be a guide to them. We can't lead others if we are blind, as Jesus tells us today. Becoming a bad tree really blinds our sight of the good, and we can't lead others to the good since the bad tree produces sin as a fruit, and sin is the sting of death, and when we don't get healing from it, we finally die.
When leading others in the right way, we need not to judge anyone. The paradox with judging others is that many times we just see the splinter in one's eye and leave a log in our eyes, as Jesus tells us in today's gospel. Our sins and wounds, if not dealt with, blind us from seeing others as God sees them, and that's when we start forming judgments and prejudices. If we realise that we also sin and make mistakes, then we will not judge others for mistakes, but we will understand them and move with a loving attitude to correct them. We must learn to know ourselves and will know others also. We will never be happy if we don't have self-knowledge because unexamined life is not worth living. This is the same even when we don't manage our strong tendencies to judge and criticize others every time. We will surely spend all our time finding the wrong in others instead of focusing on our lives. Let judgment be left to God alone.
How then do we become good trees? We must work and become holy, spiritually sound, and internally clean, for everything comes from within; a good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart; a bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness. We become a good tree by doing these basics well. First, pray, pray well, and pray hard. Let your life be centred on prayer. Second, learn your faith. Listen to the Gospels, learn all that God has revealed through the Church, read the teachings of the saints, and learn from other holy people. Third, live a good sacramental life. Go to Mass, celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation, understand the grace of your Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, Ordination, etc. Know that the Sacraments nourish you in powerful ways, and embrace that nourishment with your whole heart.
Reflect today on your journey of becoming a good tree. Know that we become a good tree; sins give way to all virtues in our lives, and only then can we be able to say with St. Paul in the second reading, "Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?" This is because the sting of death is sin, and when sin gets out of life, there is no death anymore. Do you want to bear good fruit in your daily life? Allow the Holy Spirit to train you in godliness and the wisdom to distinguish good fruit from bad fruit (1 Timothy 4:7-8, Hebrews 5:14).
Let us Pray (Prayer of William Barclay)
O Father, give us the humility that realizes its ignorance, admits its mistakes, recognizes its need, welcomes advice and accepts rebuke. Help us always to praise rather than to criticize, to sympathize rather than to discourage, to build rather than to destroy, and to think of people at their best rather than at their worst. This we ask for your name's sake. Amen
Be blessed
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