Saturday, February 24th, 2007

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

February 24, 2007


“If you remove from your midst false accusation”
Isaiah 58:9

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I remember speaking with a parishioner who was pretty upset with me. I asked why and she said that I intentionally “blew her off” one day while greeting people after mass. I said I am sorry that she saw it that way but that I would never intentionally ignore her. She said it was intentional and that was that! What could I do? I asked her for forgiveness and she made clear to me that that wasn’t going to be happening. Bummer! I told her that forgiveness would be the Christian thing to do.



Obviously, I felt falsely accused in this situation. This woman had decided it was my intention to ignore her. I, for my part, know that it was not my intention to ignore her. The situation is that I had no reason to ignore her and there are always a lot of people vying for my attention after mass and I try to get to as many of them as possible. Many walk by and many who are standing in line leave before I can get to them. And, as a priest, it isn’t exactly in my vocabulary to ignore people and especially someone who I do not have any problems with.



But she decided that I willfully intended to ignore her after mass. My question is, “How could she know that?” And how about all the accusations I make in my life about why other people do what they do? How do I know? How do I really know their innermost heart? What is the true story behind all that they have done? Am I big enough to so easily and readily and harshly accuse another acting like I know the mystery of that human person? Beware, because that is dangerous business and can become sinful very quickly.



If you know me, you know I love to have scripture quotes, quotes, poems, alliterations, acronyms, my own personal axioms, etc. running around in my brain. One of my personal axioms is, “People are doing the best they can with what they got.” So, for example, if a person has never really been shown love or honesty or positive speech growing up then there is a good chance that they will not have that in their repertoire until they are given that and choose the grace to change.



Let us all be vigilant with how we can so easily and readily and harshly accuse others knowing that it is safe to assume that people are generally doing the best they can with what they’ve got.



Live the confronted life!

+Fr. John