A Concord Pastor Comments: The rush to judgement

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A recent article by Pittsburgh's Bishop David Zubik has much to offer those of us who wander in and out of the Catholic blogosphere.

As we read this excerpt (and the complete piece in the Pittsburgh Catholic) we might consider the quick judgments we jump to about one another in our parishes, online and in the Church at large.

The advice here is simple: “always interpret everything in the most favorable light.”

You may be surprised to know that I am beginning to be wired in to the new social media. Now, understand, I’m not as wired as your average 13-year-old. But at least I’m not completely oblivious to this new world of social communications that surrounds us.

Let me give you an example. I was thrilled to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, at SS. John and Paul Parish right off Interstate 79 North. Mass, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, Holy Hour — it was a beautiful afternoon of prayer with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

During the quiet of the Holy Hour, I pulled out my cell phone where I have an app for the breviary, the Liturgy of the Hours. I was able to call up the prayers and readings for that afternoon and have a great opportunity for prayer and meditation.

After the service was over and I was preparing to leave the parish, the pastor, Father Joe McCaffrey, let me know that I had been caught. Caught at what? It seems that somebody told him that the bishop was using the Holy Hour to check his phone messages.

If I haven’t been guilty of doing it myself, I might have gone into a slow — or fast — burn. But I understand how it works. We are all in a rush to judgment at times, quickly assuming the worst of people based often on the least of knowledge. We can spot the speck in someone’s eye a mile away while we carefully ignore the beam in own. We can even spot that speck when it isn’t there at all...

We are called to live love, to reflect that Divine Love we remember in Divine Mercy Sunday. It is a love that calls us to mercy, and that calls us to charity which is Divine Love and Mercy lived.

Particularly during the Easter season, an armistice on the rush to judgment might be called. We have lived again in those last few days of the Lenten season the greatest rush to judgment in humanity’s history. An innocent Jesus is arrested, tried, beaten, paraded through the streets and brutally crucified. Humanity judges the Son of Man and rushes to his execution.

In warning about missing that beam in our own eye, Jesus warns us not to judge. He is not telling us to tolerate sin. But he is reminding us not to rush into judgment. He is telling us our lives are meant to be lived not in pointing fingers, but in charity that doesn’t ask before it serves, doesn’t lecture before it ministers, doesn’t judge before it heals.

In the maxims of the Sisters of St. Joseph attributed to the order’s founder, Father Jean Pierre Medaille, he reminds his congregation in the Eucharist Letter to “always interpret everything in the most favorable light.”

It is a good maxim for all of us. Something we should all keep in mind as we go through our daily pilgrimage. I know that I will try to remember it...

(Read the complete article here and thanks to Deacon Greg for the link to Bishop Zubik's reflection)