12TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Psalter: Week 3 / (Green)
Ps 33:12-13, 18-19, 20 & 22
Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
1st Reading: Gen 12:1-9
Yahweh said to Abram, “Leave your country, your family and your father’s house, for the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse, and in you all people of the earth will be blessed.”
So Abram went as Yahweh had told him, and Lot went with him.
Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abram took Sarai, his wife, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran. They set out for the land of Canaan.
They arrived at Canaan. Abram travelled through the country as far as Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Yahweh appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” There he built an altar to Yahweh who had appeared to him.
From there he went on to the mountains east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There also he built an altar to Yahweh and called on the name of Yahweh. Then Abram set out in the direction of Negeb.
Gospel: Mt 7:1-5
Do not judge; and you will not be judged. In the same way you judge others, you will be judged; and the measure you use for others will be used for you. Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, and not see the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Come, let me take the speck from your eye,’ as long as that plank is in your own? Hypocrite, remove the plank out of your own eye; then, you will see clearly, to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.
REFLECTION:
To be a judge is a big responsibility. You need time for studies and training in order to be appointed as such. You also need to adhere to a certain lifestyle that facilitates impartial judgment. This tremendous call for responsibility is the reason why there are few judges. Most would never qualify, or if qualified, are not willing to embrace the responsibility.
Yet many of us want to play the appointed judge especially in the moral sphere. We are so sure of our own goodness that others pale in comparison to us. Hence we feel the sense of entitlement. But Jesus invites us not to act as judge but as companions of those who have fallen from grace. This is an invitation to empathize with fallen humanity, to be part of its agony and its process of healing and reconciliation with God. When we do not become “the other” but to be “with another” we share in the collective hopes and dreams of humanity, we become at home in this good earth that we live in.
Daily Reflection
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Biblical Texts are taken from Christian Community Bible, Catholic Pastoral Edition (57th Edition) The New English Translation for the ROMAN MISSAL
With permission from the EPISCOPAL COMMISION ON LITURGY of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines
Readings and Reflections
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