Do not judge others be ashamed before God for being a sinner, says pope

“Be merciful. Be merciful as your Father is merciful.” Be “More: be generous. Give and you shall be given. What will be given to me? A good measure, pressed, filled and overflowing. The abundance of the Lord’s generosity, when we shall be full of the abundance of our mercy in not judging."

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Do not judge others and be ashamed before God, the only judge, of being sinners, warned Pope Francis in his homily in this morning’s Mass at Casa Santa Marta, when he commented Jesus’s invitation from today's Gospel (Lk 6,36-38).

The invitation is not to judge, to go one step further, to forgive. Each of us may think, "But, I never judge, I am not a judge." Francis urges us to examine our attitudes. "How often is the topic of our conversations about judging others!", when we say "this is not right".

"But who made you judge, you?" the pontiff rhetorically asked. "Judging others is a bad thing, because the only judge is the Lord" who is conscious about man’s tendency to judge.

"In the meetings we have, at lunch, whatever it is, let us think about the duration of two hours. Of those two hours, how many minutes do we spend judging others? This is 'no'. But what is 'yes'? Be merciful. Be merciful as your Father is merciful.”

Be “More: be generous. Give and you shall be given. What will be given to me? A good measure, pressed, filled and overflowing. The abundance of the Lord’s generosity, when we shall be full of the abundance of our mercy in not judging."

Thus, the invitation is to be merciful towards others for, in the same way, the Lord shall be merciful towards us.

The second part of the Church’s message today is the invitation to show an attitude of humility towards God, which entails recognising ourselves as sinners.

"We know that God's justice is mercy. But we must say it: 'Justice is good for you; for us, it’s shame'. And when we meet God's justice with our shame, there is forgiveness.”

“Do I believe I have sinned against the Lord? Do I believe the Lord is fair? Do I believe he is merciful? Am I ashamed before God of being a sinner? It’s so simple: to you justice, to me shame. And ask for the grace of shame."

In this regard, Francis noted that in his language the people who do evil are told to be "ashamed" in order to reiterate the invitation to ask for grace "so that we never lack shame before God".

"Shame is a great grace. Thus, let us remember the attitude towards our neighbours, remember that the measure with which I judge, I shall be judged; [therefore,] I must not judge. And if I say something about the other, let it be done generously, with a lot of mercy. The attitude before God, this essential dialogue, is 'To you justice, to me shame".

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