Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C
Sirach 27:4–7
Psalm 92:2–3, 13–14, 15–16
1 Corinthians 15:54–58
Luke 6:39–45
Each human being has a “native” approach to understanding the world. Both nature and nurture have a hand in setting up the mechanisms by which we evaluate what is going on around us, but in the end, human freedom has the final “power.”
We can choose to see things from our own limited and unexamined perspective. We can choose to allow others or the culture in which we live shape our estimation of things, accepting their evaluation without a critical reflection on the truth. Or we can allow God’s Spirit to penetrate our hearts, freeing us to see things more clearly, acknowledging our own limitations and realizing that the culture around us often has something different in view.
St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that human reason sets us apart from the rest of nature, but that our intellect has been darkened by the reality of the fallen world. Faith has the capacity to purify our intellect’s grasp of the world. For this reason, we are invited to discover our own tendency to be blind to our own faults and to the need for an approach that allows wisdom to guide us in our actions.
Human beings communicate through words and gestures that encompass a meaning that goes beyond the words and gestures themselves. Our spirits contain more than our bodies can express directly. The relationship between us and God and the relationships we share among us are more than what we say and do, but how we speak to one another and our actions toward one another communicate what is in our spirits.
The capacity to listen and to understand from words and actions what is meant resides in human nature. Each culture, and each unique human person, has nuances of meaning that must be learned. But some things are clear when we pay attention and step out of our habitual way of shaping what is offered to us by other persons.
Jesus, Who alone grasps fully Who God is, invites us to use the faculty that is within us to “remove the plank” in our own eyes to enable us to help others overcome their faults. This is human freedom. Our world often confuses freedom with license, which is the ability to do “whatever we want.” Freedom is to correspond ourselves with the person that God has created us to be. This is a gift that is received, not something purely of our own design.
When we are put through the strainer or sieve by the events and circumstances of our lives, we learn our true mettle. What is real in us remains regardless of the punishment that the world doles out to us. God has placed within each human being a “thread” that connects us to Him, to all other persons and to all creation. Our persons – as well as our personalities – are forged by the way we learn to shape our responses and to exercise freedom.
How do we discern the right response? We look inward to discover our true motives, to uncover the blind spots within. We look outward to see how we relate to each neighbor, to the persons who are part of our lives.
We also learn to measure whether we are aiming high enough. If our sights are set on this world only, we will fall into the ditch. The fruit of true freedom opens up hope for life beyond this life. Death loses its sting when we realize that in Christ we have become free.
The fruits of this way of seeing are found in the manner in which we relate to ourselves, to others and to God. We become truly thankful, praying in every circumstance, “Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.” We give “thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In times of trouble, we are able to remain “firm, steadfast, always fully devoted to the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord (our) labor is not in vain.”
May our hearts be full of hope, ready to reap the rewards God has in store for us. Happy Lent!