but when fully trained, he will be like the master. So why do you pay attention to the speck
in your brother’s eye, while you have a log in your eye, and are not conscious of it? How can
you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take this speck out of your eye,’ when you can’t
remove the log in your own? You hypocrite! First remove the log from your own eye, and then
you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your neighbor’s eye.

Reflect

“Recognizing our limitations.” Being merciful to others increases our capacity for
self-introspection. Likewise, the more self-introspective we are, the more merciful we
become. We would refrain from judging other people if we keep growing in
selfknowledge. Self-introspection increases self-knowledge. Self-knowledge helps
us grow in terms of self-acceptance, including our own limitations. When we have
learned accepting our own limitations, we shall have better capacity accepting the
limitations of other people as well. This is so because we often tend to see the
limitations of others while failing to see our own. Today, we continue our reflection on
the Lucan Sermon on the Plain. Jesus challenges us to first remove the log from our
own eyes before trying to remove the speck from other people’s eyes. We can only
point out the areas in which other people may grow after seeing with clarity the areas
in which we also need to grow. Moreover, we tend to look for scapegoats because we
cannot carry our own sins. Scapegoating is an applied hypocrisy. As Christians, we
are called to do otherwise. The way of the cross is to carry other people’s sins. As
human beings, we can only carry the sins of others after learning to carry our own.

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