The Lord speaks of "reward": "Judge not, lest you be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned". "The first step is to accuses ourselves. The courage to accuse oneself before accusing others. ""When I get the urge to tell others their faults of others, I must stop and ask myself, what about me?".

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "Men and women who can’t learn how to acknowledge their own faults become hypocrites. All of them? All of them: starting from the Pope down. "Learn not to judge others, but to look to ourselves was the focus of the Pope’s homily at Mass celebrated this morning at Casa Santa Marta, commenting on the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus asked, "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? ".

Francis said that, these days, the liturgy enables us to reflect on the Christian style of tenderness, goodness, meekness and  which exhorts us to bear with one another. The Lord, he said, speaks of the "reward": "Judge not, lest ye be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. " But we can say: ‘So, this is all fine, isn’t it?’ And each of us can say: ‘Yes Father, this is all fine but how can it actually be done, where does one start with this?’  And what’s the first step for going along this path?’  We see that first step in today’s first Reading, in the Gospel. The first step is to acknowledge our own faults. The courage to acknowledge this before accusing others.  And Paul praises the Lord because he chose him and gives thanks because ‘he has judged me trustworthy, even though I used to be a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man.’ But this was mercy.”

Quoting from Christ’s words to take the log out of our own eye first, Pope Francis stressed that it is essential to acknowledge our own faults before we can see clearly enough ‘to take the splinter out of our brother’s eye.’  “And Jesus uses that word that he only uses with those who are two-faced, with two minds: ‘Hypocrites! Hypocrite.  Men and women who can’t learn how to acknowledge their own faults become hypocrites. All of them? All of them: starting from the Pope downwards: all of them. If a person isn’t able to acknowledge his or her faults and then says, if it’s necessary, who we should be telling things about other people, that person is not a Christian, is not part of this very beautiful work of reconciliation, peace-making, tenderness, goodness, forgiveness, generosity and mercy that Jesus Christ brought to us.”

The Pope went on to urge us to stop ourselves in time when we are tempted to speak badly about others.“When we get tempted to talk to people about the faults of others, we must stop ourselves. And me? And have the courage that Paul had, here: ‘I used to be a blasphemer, a persecutor, a violent man’…  But how many things can we say about ourselves? Let’s refrain from comments about others and let’s comment about ourselves. And this is the first step along this path of magnanimity. Because a person who can only see the logs in the eyes of others, falls into pettiness: a petty mind, full of pettiness, full of chatter.”

Pope Francis concluded his homily saying let us ask the Lord to give us the grace to follow Jesus’ advice to be generous with forgiveness and generous with mercy, adding that a person who has never spoken badly about others, should be canonized immediately.

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