Should We Judge? …YES!

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Life requires decisions, decisions require judgments.  Tt follows, then, that we make judgments all day long.  Every decision we make involves judging and judgment of various factors (even indecision is making the choice not to decide, which is guided by our judgments).  So why does “judging” get such a bad wrap?  Why does God speak so directly against judging others in Scripture?  Can we judge or can’t we?  The answer is, “Yes, we can and should judge”…but there is a distinction to be made between two very different kinds of judgment – one that we must make, and one that we ought never to make.  The problem is, we often jump right from the first into the second!

The Day It Hit Me

Corpus Christi

As a freshman in high school I remember the day it hit me: that Jesus is physically present in the Eucharist!  How many times had I heard that in religion class or at Church?  And yet it seemed to always go in one ear and out the other.  But this particular day it finally hit me – what looks like bread and what looks like wine is actually changed entirely into Jesus!  If the Eucharist is a nice symbol of Jesus…so what?  There are lots of nice symbols of Jesus in our world.  But if the Eucharist IS Jesus Christ…then that changes everything!  That was the start of my reconversion to the faith, and that was the start of my call to the priesthood.  So what does it mean for you that Jesus is physically present in the Eucharist (vs. symbolically present)?  What difference does that make in your life?  For me it’s made all the difference!