St. Therese and judging others

By Rebecca Duncan

Photo credit: Wikipedia.

And it is the Lord, it is Jesus, Who is my judge. Therefore I will try always to think leniently of others, that He may judge me leniently, or rather not at all, since He says: "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.”
― St. Thérèse de Lisieux, Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux

I would much rather not be judged when I die, like St. Therese.  I know Mother Teresa said that she never judged anyone because if you judge others it leaves no room to love them.

I suppose there are a lot of reasons that people can be judgmental.  Perhaps one reason is that we put a misplaced value on people, their behavior and their way of thinking.  Their ideas can be wrong and their behavior can be wrong, but that's never more important than the person themselves.

Correcting people's errors is a work of charity.  But if we correct without love then there is no good in it.  If we don't have love then nothing we do is worth anything. 

If the only thing we see when we are trying to correct someone is their error then we have a log in our eye that needs to be taken out first.


Rebecca blogs at  Otaku Catholic.

Let God probe the depths of your heart

 By Heidi

Woe unto You, Scribes and Pharisees by Tissot (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The readings for the last week of August have featured Psalm 139, a Psalm that I love.  It is especially valuable since the Gospel has been Matthew 23 where Jesus declares “woe to you scribes and Pharisees”, and the first reading has included Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians in which he explains his motives for his ministry.

The contrasts could not be more stark, Paul is firm in his proclaiming the Good News; he is seeking to please God and not men. So he endures the rejection of many and the frailty of the communities that he is ministering to with love and with honesty.  He allows the Lord to search his heart, to probe his motives so that he does not try to accomplish God’s work through deception, through flattery, or that he is not merely seeking praise and attention from other men.  His love and his motivation are from God, with whom he draws his strength from an ongoing and intimate relationship.

The Pharisees use the law to bolster themselves, to solidify their power, “neglecting the weightier things of the law:  Judgment, mercy and fidelity.”  Jesus' words cut like a knife through the exterior delusions of sanctity to reveal that they are filled with “evildoing and hypocrisy.”  They are not motivated by love of God, though they claim they are, and may even believe they are.


Finish reading at Journey to Wisdom.