Daily Liturgy
Monday 21 June
TWELFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
THE BEAM IN YOUR OWN EYE
Introduction
A vague promise was all that Abraham had to go by when he followed the call of an unknown God: a land to be possessed not by himself but by his descendants, a numerous people to be born from him though he was seventy-five, and his name that would be a blessing among the nations – but long after his death. For nothing more concrete, he had to leave his highly civilized country, his relatives, his father’s house, his possessions. He had literally by faith alone, to jump with both feet into an uncertain future. He accepted to be completely uprooted. Can our faith compare to his? Do we accept to be uprooted? Do we live in hope amidst uncertainty?
For people who walk side-by-side with the Lord, there is no room for superiority complexes that look down on the people around us to condemn them. We have all the same calling in Christ. Do we not often judge and condemn in others that which, consciously or unconsciously, we condemn in ourselves? At times, we even secretly rejoice that our brother or sister suffers from the same shortcoming to a greater extent than we do. If we apply the law to others, God will measure us with the same severity of the law. Let us look into ourselves and remove the beam from our own eyes before we discover the splinter in the eyes of others.
Opening Prayer
Lord our God,
we are people who have not yet seen
what you have prepared for us,
yet, who have to take you on your word
and to walk forward in faith and hope.
Give us faith Lord, a deep faith
that asks for no other certainty
than that you know where you lead us
and that all is well and secure
because you are our God and Father,
who loves us, for ever and ever.
Reading 1: Gen 12:1-9;
The LORD said to Abram: Go forth from your land, your relatives, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the families of the earth will find blessing in you. Abram went as the LORD directed him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai, his brother’s son Lot, all the possessions that they had accumulated, and the persons they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land as far as the sacred place at Shechem, by the oak of Moreh. The Canaanites were then in the land.
The LORD appeared to Abram and said: To your descendants I will give this land. So Abram built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country east of Bethel, pitching his tent with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. He built an altar there to the LORD and invoked the LORD by name. Then Abram journeyed on by stages to the Negeb.
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 33:12-13, 18-19, 20 and 22
R: Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people chosen as his inheritance.
From heaven the LORD looks down
and observes the children of Adam,
R: Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon those who fear him,
upon those who count on his mercy,
To deliver their soul from death,
and to keep them alive through famine.
R: Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Our soul waits for the LORD,
he is our help and shield.
R: Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
May your mercy, LORD, be upon us;
as we put our hope in you.
R: Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.
Alleluia: Heb 4:12
Alleluia, alleluia
The word of God is living and effective, able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.
Alleluia, alleluia
Gospel: Mt 7:1-5
“Stop judging that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.
Intentions
– Lord, do not allow us to take pleasure in judging people, but like you, in pardoning them, we pray:
– Lord, let our faith be an act of trust that we are in your hands, you want our happiness and you know where you lead us, we pray:
– That the awareness of our own shortcomings may dispose us to put aside our irritation at the mistakes of others, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Generous Father,
you give us your good gifts without measure,
for you are our Father.
Accept in these offerings of bread and wine
our willingness to learn from your Son
to love one another without measure,
to learn to understand one another
and to go together the ways of peace
of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Prayer after Communion
Lord God, our Father,
your Son came into the world
not to condemn it but to save it.
For this he gives himself to us
here in this Eucharistic Celebration.
Let us share in his attitude.
Make us look into our own hearts
and learn to see in our neighbor,
behind their faults and failures,
the face of him who came
to forgive and to fill us with his life,
Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Blessing
“Do not judge and you will not be judged.” The tendency among us is so strong and persistent that it is very difficult to eradicate. May God bless you to make you more deeply Christian, so that he can judge you more mildly: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Commentary
In this chapter of Genesis, the “epic of sin” that has dominated the first eleven chapters has come to an end. At this point a new era of faith appears with the call of the earliest patriarch Abram (whose name only later is changed to Abraham). His origins lay in Ur of the Chaldees, deep in present-day Iraq; from there he had migrated north to Haran where he had settled with his family. Called by God to move west and settle in Canaan, subsequently named Israel, he is initially blessed in a very singular way. From him is to come forth a great nation, and so great will his name become, that future generations will use it as a blessing. “May you be blessed as was Abraham.” Abram makes the journey to Canaan where he passes through regions destined to play a major part in the history of the Hebrews: Shechem, Bethel, the Negeb. In this, as in his future life, Abram is the obedient servant of the Lord, whom at one time he had never known.
It is this willingness to respond to God’s will that will play such a prominent part in the history of the people of God. Revelation will grow in its grasp of God, but the human response remains the same: “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening,” so clearly evident from Abram to the prophets, from David to Josiah, to Mary at Nazareth and to Jesus himself. It lies at the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition. “Thy will be done.”
Points to Ponder
Abram’s obedient response
Obedience and the Christian message
Modern examples of Christian obedience