St. Aloysius Gonzaga, religious 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊     

Genesis 12:1-9

Yahweh said to Abram,

“Leave your country, your family and your father’s house, for the land I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse, and in you all peoples of the earth will be blessed.”

 So Abram went as Yahweh had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abram took Sarai, his wife, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran. They set out for the land of Canaan.

They arrived at Canaan.  Abram traveled through the country as far as Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.   Yahweh appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” There he built an altar to Yahweh who had appeared to him.

From there he went on to the moun­tains east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There also he built an altar to Yahweh and called on the name of Yahweh.   Then Abram set out in the direction of Negeb.

 

Ps 33:12-13, 18-19, 20 & 22

Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊   

Matthew 7:1-5

 Do not judge and you will not be judged.  In the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and the measure you use for others will be used for you. Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye and not see the plank in your own eye?   How can you say to your brother: ‘Come, let me take the speck from your eye,’ as long as that plank is in your own? Hypocrite, take first the plank out of your own eye, then you will see clear enough to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

 

Gospel Reflection：

It is easy to preoccupy ourselves with others. We sit comfortable in our judgment seat and have on need to look into our own personal life. We are busy scaling others and feel a certain sense of righteousness having appointed ourselves as the conscientious evaluators of their moral lives.

The problem with this task is that the measure we use on others is the measure that will used against us too. What we detest in others is usually the mirror of what we try hard to keep away from other’s eyes. So when we judge them, we judge ourselves. We have no one to blame of the punishment we will incur because of our transgressions. Ultimately the judgment is self-inflected.