Friday of the Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time
Luke 6:39-42
Jesus told his disciples a parable: “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.”
Opening Prayer: Holy Spirit, send me your wisdom, knowledge, and understanding so that I might become like you. Help me imitate you in my thoughts, words, and actions. Open the meaning of these words to me and press them deeply into my heart.
Encountering Christ:
- Imitate the Teacher: Christ calls us, his disciples, to become “fully trained” in order to be conformed to him. We become like the teacher par excellence, Jesus, by imitating him (cf. Eph 5:1). To apply this to our everyday lives, we can practice pausing in prayer in the various circumstances we experience, asking Jesus how he would approach the situations at hand and then imitating him. This can especially be helpful in difficult situations or trials, as Jesus “was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, knowing pain” (Isa 53:3). During trials, we can pray for faith and wisdom to guide us so we see the meaning in our suffering and persevere (cf. Jas 1:2-7). By imitating Jesus in and enduring our sufferings, we will grow to maturity, “to the extent of the full stature of Christ” (Eph 4:13).
- Pruned for Maturity: Scripture reading is essential to understanding how to imitate Christ. St. Jerome said, “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” How can we understand what Jesus taught and how he lived, let alone imitate him, without being intimately familiar with the firsthand accounts of his earthly life in the Gospels and apostolic Christian teaching of the early Church? Not only does reading Scripture give us knowledge of Christ, it changes us as we read it: “Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart” (Heb 4:12). It prunes away what is sinful and unfruitful in us (cf. Jn 15:3). Pruning with the word is one way that we can “remove the splinter” from our own eyes before helping others to do so. Being pruned from sinful patterns is necessary for becoming “pefect and complete” in Christ (Jas 1:4).
- Removing Beams and Splinters: Since we are all children of God the Father, we are brothers and sisters with Christ as well. Christ is the only brother who can rightly say to us, “Let me take the beam from your eye,” because he knows us more perfectly than anyone else. He knows beams from splinters and can extract either with precision, causing us the least amount of pain and the most complete healing. Let us surrender to our Divine Physician, trusting in his gentle care for our soul.
Conversing with Christ: Christ, I open my heart before you. You see the beams that keep me from seeing what you see, and you are the Brother who has the power to remove them. Enlighten my mind and strengthen my heart to act on what you show me in this moment of prayer and in the circumstances of my life. I ask you for the grace to see with your eyes and heart.
Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will strive to focus on promptly answering what you’re asking of me, following your inspirations with purity of intention.
Carey Boyzuck, MTS, is a wife, mother, freelance writer, pastoral assistant, and lay member of Regnum Christi. She blogs at www.word-life-light.com.
