Monday of the 12th Week in Ordinary Time

"A Little Self-Questioning"
 
“Israel sinned. They venerated other gods. They were stiff-necked. They rejected God’s covenant.” Today’s first scripture reading may seem to provide us with ample reason for self-congratulation. After all, it was the ancient Hebrews who sinned, practiced idolatry, turned their backs on the covenant and were so stiff-necked – not us!
 
But it’s just that sort of self-righteous judgment Jesus advises us against in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 7: 1-5). The Scriptures, especially the history of the failures of the Hebrews to live up to the covenant, are not given to us to bolster our own sense of spiritual contentment. Better to use the example of the Israelites to examine our own lives. How faithfully do we live up to our status as beloved sons and daughters of God, members of God’s family?
 
The idols may not be golden calves (Exodus 32), but how do we regard our ambitions, wealth, or the desire for it, our own time and comfort? Have we perhaps become rigid in our conviction that we know and obey God’s will for us? True, our Lord’s teaching was not given simply to terrorize us or make us, as we say, nervous wrecks. It does, however, require a constant and adjustable willingness to suspect that we are as likely as the rest of the human race to become prematurely content with ourselves. The specks aren’t just in other eyes!