March 3 // Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading I: Sirach 27:4-7
Responsorial Psalm 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16
Reading II: 1 Corinthians 15:54-58
Gospel: Luke 6:39-45

Today’s Gospel is another portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, and it challenges all of us.

If we have fruit trees on our properties or pick apples in orchards when they have ripened, we can understand Jesus’ words about good trees and rotten trees—good fruit and rotten fruit.

But have we applied Jesus’ parable about good and bad fruit to ourselves? The well known saying about the splinter in another person’s eye versus the wooden beam in our own eye is something we should reflect upon often.

In today’s world where so many of us feel powerless and insecure, and where most of us have strong disagreements with one another on a number of issues, it’s crucial for the followers of Jesus to remove that wooden beam.

Then we need to sit down and truly listen to one another. We may still disagree, but let us do so with compassion, remembering that we all are sisters and brothers of each other and of Jesus.

Sheryl Zabel
Pastoral Minister, RCIA