“Judge not[1], and you shall not be judged; condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven.
“And why seest thou the mote[2] that is in thy brother’s eye, and seest not the beam [3] that is in thy own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother: Let me cast the mote out of thy eye, and behold a beam is in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye!”
COMMENTARY.
The qualities of charity. God being so good and merciful to us, we ought to be full of love and indulgence towards our fellow-men. Since we ought to love our neighbour as we do ourselves, the whole law of brotherly love is summed up in this maxim: “All that you would that men should do to you, do ye also to them,” or, to reverse it: All that you do not want men to do to you, be careful not to do to them. Therefore our brotherly love must be:
a) sincere. We are to wish our neighbour, in our hearts, quite as much good as we wish ourselves. Further, our love must be
b) practical. We must do good to our neighbour according to our means: “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” Finally, our love must be
c) universal. We must not exclude from our love either our enemies or those who have injured us, but must forgive them from our hearts. “Forgive, and you shall be forgiven.”
Sins against brotherly love. Our Lord equally warns us as to all sins against brotherly love, whether they be committed by thought, word, or deed.
a) Censoriousness and detraction. He who desires to find fault with others, must make sure that he himself is better than they! And yet, do we not constantly find that those men who have great faults of their own, are the very ones who judge the small faults of their neighbours most severely, not at all remembering their own short-comings? Such men are hypocrites, for they pretend to detest and avoid sin in others, while all the time they are loving and cherishing it in themselves. Furthermore, they sin against brotherly love by preferring to talk about what is bad in their neighbours, rather than about what is good in them, and they are more zealous in exposing their faults than in concealing them.
