WelCom February/March 2025
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Luke 6:39-45
39 Jesus told his disciples a parable, ‘Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? 40 No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher.
41 Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but never notice the great log in your own?
42 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 great log from your eye first; then you will see clearly enough to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.
43 ‘A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit.
44 For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles.
45 A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.’
Working to make the kingdom come
Dennis Horton
Today’s reading comes hard on the heels of Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, read at Mass a fortnight ago. It includes a cluster of parables which Jesus uses to show his disciples how they need to act if their faith is to turn into deeds that will help to make God’s kingdom come.
At the heart of each parable lies the truth expressed so neatly in the maxim taught by scholars like Thomas Aquinas, ‘Nemo dat quod non habet’ – no one can give what they do not have.
There may well have been a blind person among those listening to Jesus, led by a family member or friend; only someone with sight could keep them from stumbling. Jesus insists that his word alone gives the light we need to see clearly and act with integrity.
Judgment of others is a trap into which disciples can easily fall. Only God sees the heart; Jesus warns us against the superficial judgments that focus on external behaviour and can often fall far short of the truth. The beam in our own eye can cause us to magnify what is only a speck in another’s life; true religion is concerned with inner motivation and integrity of heart, not external conformity on which the Pharisees were so prone to focus. Foremost among the images Jesus provides is that of the tree known by its fruit – good or rotten. We can delivery only what springs from our heart, good or evil.
The start of a New Year is traditionally a time for good resolutions. How can each of us become more faithful in responding to the gospel’s call? What can I do, in a practical way, to let the values of Jesus take deeper root in my life and in my world? The theme of the Holy Year of Jubilee, proclaimed by Pope Francis as he opened the holy door in Rome on Christmas Eve, is that we become pilgrims of hope.
His call was echoed by Archbishop Gabor Pinter, the pope’s representative in New Zealand, at a Mass in Northland to mark the first Eucharist celebrated by Bishop Pompallier in 1838. We are all on a pilgrimage, the nuncio declared, not a physical journey to a sacred place but a spiritual journey towards God. Hope is not just wishful thinking, he said, but ‘a confident expectation rooted in God’s faithfulness.’ As prophets of hope, ‘we are called to be bearers of this promise, sharing God’s light in our world, and inspiring others to trust in God’s promise.’