Pope Benedict XVI tells us that God is speech. He is constantly communicating Himself (love) to us. Naturally, we who are made in His likeness and likeness communicate ourselves as well, and Jesus warns us in today’s gospel of the responsibility of our speech.
The scriptures tell us that the mouth reveals the heart. This can be a good examination of conscience for us. What are the words that I say reveal about who I am? What do the words I type out online or in my messages indicate about my soul? What do the thoughts in my head show me about my disposition? Jesus tells us that good fruit comes from a good tree. Thus, loving thoughts and actions come from a loving person, and selfish thoughts and actions come from a selfish person. Examining our words, thoughts, and deeds are the simplest way of identifying whether or not we are on the path of love.
Yet, we must not boil everything down to actions. Just because we do a good thing does not mean that we do it for the right reasons. Being nice so that others will be nice to you is an imperfect form of love. It is good to do, and we should do it. But we need to move towards loving people for who they are and not so that we receive some sort of benefit from it in return. Sure, it can be an additional motive. Sure, it is fine to receive benefits for good actions. But that should not be our main intention behind being nice or behind any good work for that matter. It may look like good fruit initially, but eventually our true egotism will be revealed.
Understanding the motivations behind our actions takes humility and blunt honesty with ourselves. If we make excuses for ourselves time and time again, then we will never grow in the spiritual life. Yes, we should be merciful to ourselves, but not at the expense of growth. For good, abundant fruit to be born on trees, the tree needs to be pruned. The same goes for our souls. We need to be able to cut back on the distractions of the material world and set our hearts on higher things so that we sow seeds in Spirit rather than the seed of corruption. Clinging on to our sinful or even non-sinful material comforts will interfere with our ability to love. We must be willing to let God prune what He wants to prune, so that fruit can be borne 30, 60, and 100 fold.
Just as much as we make excuses for ourselves, we also tend to not give others the benefit of the doubt. We can become harsh judges for others, accusing them in our thoughts and words. In doing so, we forget our own sinfulness and failures and expect perfection from others. Jesus points this out with His classic line, Remove the beam from your own eye before you remove the splinter from your own. Jesus emphasizes that judgement of other people, especially when we have faults of our own, will lead to both going in the wrong direction. For true progress to be made, we must first align ourselves with God’s vision, then we can aid our brothers and sisters in doing so. If we skip our personal pruning and cast judgment on others, we will be the blind leading the blind into the pit.
We are called to be like our God – to communicate. We have no choice but to communicate as long as we are living. But we truly become ourselves when we communicate love. This is what we were created for. Thus, it is essential that when we communicate, we communicate Him. When we do so, we not only find who we are called to be, but we also help others find themselves in Him as well. To find Him is to find ourselves, and when we communicate that with others, they are drawn to Him through us. Consequently, our speech is in one accord with Him, speaking life to the world, and making all things new.
