Homily for Wednesday, 16 October 2013– Memorial of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and St. Hedwig

Wednesday of the 28th week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Romans 2:1-11; Psalm 62:2-3, 6-7, 9; Luke 11:42-46

I imagine that not many of us would enjoy being characterized as judging or, worse, judgmental. Not only is the notion of judging one another or even ourselves difficult for many people, but so is understanding God as a judge. Those of us in legal professions might recoil at the severe criticism in today’s readings by St. Paul and by Jesus of those whose work it was to judge other people according to religious standards: among them the Pharisees and “scholars of the law.”

And yet we are all called to judge more often than we might think, whether between right and wrong; between what is according to God’s will for us and what is not; between a good and a greater or longer-lasting good. To fail in our responsibility to judge these matters is relativism. It is not the way of truth; the way of the Gospel; the way of God.

Scripture does not prohibit us from judging, although some of its sayings can be misinterpreted to mean “do not judge under any circumstance.” In today’s first reading and Gospel reading, St. Paul and Jesus do not prohibit us from judging. However, they do caution us strongly as to how we judge.

Our readings from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans and from Luke’s Gospel identify two ways we understand judgment. In the negative sense of being “judgmental,” some early Roman Christians and some Pharisees and lawyers of Jesus’ time condemned others for “the very same” wrongs they themselves were committing. They were “stubborn” and “impenitent”; going even beyond the necessary observance of the law while neglecting what is most important: “judgment and love for God.”

Here we have the second, positive, sense of the word “judgment.” St. Paul describes God as judge in this positive sense. While God is able to condemn those who unjustly condemn others, in Paul’s words God’s judgment is primarily one of “priceless kindness, forbearance, and patience” that leads us “to repentance.”

What, then, would our world be like if we were to judge and act toward one another with God-like “priceless kindness, forbearance, and patience”? Even as we hold others to account, what would our world be like if we were to hold ourselves to account by the same standards with which we judge others: with self-awareness and occasionally self-criticism (this is difficult!), but with the same “priceless kindness, forbearance, and patience”? We might see this kind of judgment lead many “to repentance.” We ourselves might be led to repentance; to conversion.

For St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a patron of St. Kateri Parish whose feast we celebrate today, judgment and action by these criteria of kindness, forbearance, and patience mean judgment and action in the manner of our loving God. “Love,” St. Margaret Mary said, “triumphs in humility and enjoys itself in unity.”

Here, then, is a litmus test for our judgment: When we judge one another or ourselves, do we judge with love? Do we judge with “priceless kindness, forbearance, and patience”? Do we judge with humility before God, our final judge? Does our judgment in love triumph “in humility and” enjoy “itself in unity”?