EYE (I) TROUBLES

September 10, 2010
Friday of the Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time
Luke 6: 39-42

One of the most delicate organs of our body is the eye. It can easily get sick, infectious and contaminated. When the eye is in trouble the whole body is in darkness. Blindness can affect not only the body but also the mind and the soul. This is why we need to check our eyes so very often.

I am talking not just about the physical eye, but more so of the inner eye and the “I” of myself. The “I” defines me. The “I” is my self—my true self and my false self. When the “I” is infected, sick and contaminated, “I” become “selfish”, “self-centered” and “self-righteous”. I am selfish when I carry a big ego, when I consider myself as the one who deserves everything in the world, when I think “I am” all in all. Selfishness does not allow me to see the other. You do not exist for me, or you do not matter to me. All that I care, is me, and mine.

Self-centerdness is revealed in me when I think of myself as the center of the universe, the center of attraction. You exist in as much as you are useful for me. I can see you as a thing, as a person secondary to me, as one who ought to serve me.

The self-righteous I would see you, and so very often notice you, but as an imperfect, subordinate being. If there is a problem in the community, I am the victim and you are the criminal. You are the source of all problems. I am perfect and holy. You need to improve a great lot. I consider it my duty to improve you and change you. I am happy to volunteer in pointing out the “evil” in you and the “splinter in your eyes”. I am a self-righteous person when I am an expert in criticism, tsismis and nagging. This is when I feel worried and restless over the splinter in your eyes, I do not realize the wooden beam in my own eye.

Now Jesus offers free consultation and cure for all “I” problems. Let me examine my “I” in the clinic of Jesus. Let me wash my “I” in the waters of repentance and cleanse my “I” in the drops of grace. Let the laser beams of His Word cut through the blindness of my “self”. Let me not over-expose my “I” to the contagious, harmful elements outside. Let me keep my “I” closed and shut at times, that I may restrain from all gossip, criticisms, self-praise, and condemnation of the world around me. Let my exercise of faith and spiritual practices help me have the courage to bare my true self (I) before the Lord and submit myself for an “I” transplant. My false self may be replaced with the true self of Jesus. Then I will be able to say with St Paul, ““Now I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2: 20).