You, O man, are without excuse, every one of you who passes judgment.
For by the standard by which you judge another you condemn yourself,
since you, the judge, do the very same things. (Rom 2:1)
In this passage to the early Church in Rome, we hear the same sobering news that Jesus told us when He taught us the Our Father.
In that prayer, which we recite on a very regular basis, we say the words, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In other words, we are asking God to forgive us exactly as we forgive others. Of course, that also means, we are acknowledging that there will be no forgiveness if we do not forgive.
There are so many things that we want in life. Yet, even as we want, our human nature tends to not want others to receive the same things.
We want satisfaction. We want love. We want possessions. We want warmth. We want comfort. We want, we want, we want.
If someone else seeks the same things? We tend to ignore them or to claim that they do not deserve them.
How can they not deserve but we do deserve? How can we set ourselves higher than others? How can we forget that the Lord called us to reach out to all people?
There is no way that we will be able to reach out to others if we spend our time judging them.
Instead of judging them as unworthy, let us see the need that others have. The same need that we ourselves have. And, in seeing, let us reach out to others and help them in their need.
FAITH ACTION: Is there someone in your life whom you are judging harshly? Is there any way to reevaluate the situation and see if you can let that person off the hook?