My Dear People, 

In the Gospel, Jesus shows himself to be a wise teacher, instructing his disciples with short aphorisms employing memorable examples and word-pictures. Now Jesus is the ultimate Son and Heir of David, surpassing Solomon in his ability to teach and communicate wisdom. 

There are three topics addressed in our gospel: the importance of a teacher as a model, the danger of hypocrisy, and the mark of a good person. 

First, Jesus stresses the importance of the role of a teacher as a model. With few exceptions, students do not surpass their teacher in knowledge and virtue. Therefore, if the teacher is vicious to begin with, there is little hope for the followers. This ought to be instructive for those of us in western culture, where we often follow the principles taught by famous teachers (Spinoza, Darwin, Freud, Descartes, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Marx, etc.) who were perverse and ignoble in their personal lives. How can we expect society as a whole to be elevated by the doctrine of men who themselves were so unsuccessful as human beings? Then we wonder why our society is so messed up. 

Secondly, Jesus warns about the danger of failing into hypocrisy, with his metaphors of the beam and the splinter in the eye. One could summarize Jesus’ teaching here by saying that examination of conscience is necessary before fraternal correction. We tend to be blind to our own faults and hyperconscious of others. We are aware of all the mitigating factors that go into our own mistakes but not those influencing others. That’s why patience is in order before judging the actions of others. We need to take care: Is my irritation with my brother or sister due to my own issues rather than his or hers? Have I provoked my brother to act the way he does by my own misbehavior? Am I not seeing something relevant about this situation due to my own self-interest? St Josemaria recommended checking with a mature third party who knows you both before making a fraternal correction. 

Finally, Jesus advises on how to recognize a good from a bad person, and the key distinguishing mark is very empirical: their fruits, which probably means: “their words, deeds and influences on other people.” At the end of the parable, Jesus singles out an example of the “fruit” that a person produces: “from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks,” but “fruit” is broader than simply words (as we can see from other passages in the Gospel) and includes a person’s deeds and the effect they have on others and the whole community. 

The point is corrupt language is a sign of corruption of the heart. This is reason for us to pause and reflect. What characterizes my own language?  We also could ask ourselves,  Do my words consistently honor God?  This would rule out angry, abusive, sarcastic, cutting, mocking, provocative, salacious, ambiguous, and critical kinds of speech. 

Words often hurt much more than sticks and stones. God created the world through words, and as creatures in the image of God, our words, too, have the power to influence reality. Let’s pray this Sunday for the purification of our hearts through the Holy Spirit so that our speech, flowing from a pure heart, will be like a life-giving well of cool fresh water to those who hear it. 

Jesus tells us that if the actions of someone are bad, then we should be cautious in following that person. Bad people corrupt good morals. In addition, we should check our speech, and our thoughts. If we have negative thoughts toward anyone it may be because something in our hearts needs to change; it is from the heart that our speech comes. Once we change our hearts, then our speech will change.

Yours in Christ, 

Fr. Vincent Clemente