WORD ALIVE in Manila Bulletin By FR. BEL R. SAN LUIS, SVD
8th Sunday Ordinary Time
March 3 2019
A parish priest happened to meet one of his parishioners in a mall and said, “Johnny, I haven’t seen you in church for a long time. What happened?”
“Father, I’ve stopped going to church. There are a lot of hypocrites there.”
Whereupon, the priest smiled and said: “Well, there’s always room for one more (hypocrite).” If one goes to church only when all are sinless, nobody would ever go to church.
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As somebody said, “The Church is an institution of sinners.” Apart from having a self-righteous or “holier-than-thou” attitude, do not be harsh and rash in judging others.
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Remember the teaching of Jesus in today’s gospel: “How can you say, `brother, let me remove the speck of your eye,’ yet cannot see because there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye’” (Luke 6,42).
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Christ’s words apply to hypocrites who are always attacking the Catholic Church and her imperfect clergy, and that includes a swell-headed, cursing You-Know-Who.
Éditions Verbum Bible 