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Vision:
To Nurture Catholic Men's Spirituality in Chicago Southland
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CMCSMen Blog
A Blog for Chicago Catholic Men
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As Catholic men it is our job to be the priest of our household as a husband or father, known as the domestic church, as well as to make a positive difference in the public square. However, it is said that your family can be your worst critic, so it is important that we know were we stand when passing judgment on others. Let us start with the scriptures ..
Judging Others - Matthew 7:1
1 “Stop judging, that you may not be judged.
2 For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.
3 Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?
4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye?
5 You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.”
And the Catholic Catechism 1861 says:
Mortal sin is a radical possibility of human freedom, as is love itself. It results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace, that is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back. However, although we can judge that an act is in itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God.
Many of you know how I’m an avid photographer, and you may recall the saying how a picture may be worth a thousand words. Today with digital technology pictures (and video) are playing a increased roll in how we view the world around us, that educate and inform us. And for this reason I say pictures are worth way more than a thousand words, to the point that we can read too much into them before talking to the people involved to learn the facts.
Every person should have a right to their own opinion without being judged for it. We may not agree with them, but should not treat them for their opinions or the person they are. In other words, we can come to a rush to judgment if we don’t make the time and investment to learn all the facts about what we are seeing in pictures and what we are being told by others about them. And by pictures, I also mean looking at the big picture in the decisions we make with our marriage and children, and the circumstances we face in the workplace and in the public square.
We see this in news and politics, and on social media, all the time. But we should not take this as acceptable behavior if we are to make Christ the center of our lives as Catholic Men.
For example, I’m sure you can relate, I have some family members and friends who judge others because they don’t agree with a certain way they are living or what they believe, say, or do about something. Because of this, they treat others like a second class citizen or not worthy of their respect. We have to remember that, as Catholic men especially, when treating others to do so with dignity and respect even when we don’t agree. This welcomes God’s judgment instead lest we be judged.
God doesn’t need you or I to do His work, he needs us to share the Gospel message, through words and deeds, and be a point of redemption for each other – and that is the big picture about passing judgment.
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Thank you for reading. God bless you and your day.
Frank J Casella,
CMCS-Director |
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Scripture footnotes:
* [7:1–12] In Mt 7:1 Matthew returns to the basic traditional material of the sermon (Lk 6:37–38, 41–42). The governing thought is the correspondence between conduct toward one’s fellows and God’s conduct toward the one so acting.
* [7:1] This is not a prohibition against recognizing the faults of others, which would be hardly compatible with Mt 7:5, 6 but against passing judgment in a spirit of arrogance, forgetful of one’s own faults.
* [7:5] Hypocrite: the designation previously given to the scribes and Pharisees is here given to the Christian disciple who is concerned with the faults of another and ignores his own more serious offenses. |
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