Salve, Regina, Mater Misericordiae.
Celebrate the Feast of St. Matthew, the Apostle and Evangelist, the author of the first gospel,
the one that gives us the most information about Jesus, the most details about his teachings.
And, of course, he was the former tax collector.
And it's amazing here how our Lord just says two words to St. Matthew.
Follow me.
He knew his heart.
Perhaps it's not kind of fairly clear that our Lord had not spoken to him directly
prior to this.
But he said only those two words, follow me.
And St. Matthew gives up everything and follows our Lord.
But he celebrates first.
He shows this feast for all his friends and doesn't do it in a worldly way.
He does it in a way to show everyone else that he's given up his sinful life.
And he wants his friends to give it up, too.
And he wants his friends to follow Jesus and honor him.
And follow his teachings, too, so that they can find salvation, too.
All of this in that feast, in that great feast.
He must have lavished.
It must have been the greatest feast he's ever had to celebrate the mercy of God
and to thank our Lord for his mercy towards him.
Something that the Pharisees don't have as they come to the feast and they pass judgment.
On perhaps St. Matthew, as well as his friends.
And he still calls them sinners, even though here they are listening to our Lord,
perhaps ready to give up their sins, too.
They don't want to look at that.
They only want to look at the reputation for their sins.
Maybe they took some money from the Pharisees and they resent it.
And that's why they're holding on to their judgments and condemnation of the,
you know, the tax collectors.
But our Lord tells them to go and learn what the words mean.
It is mercy that I, it is, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.
Our Lord wants us to be merciful, to be charitable to others and not judgmental,
not condemnatory.
And so our Lord says those words, do not judge and you will not be judged.
Do not condemn and you will not be condemned.
And we can reflect on that today in this Feast of St. Matthew,
how, how important it is not to judge because it is from judgments that we,
that we end up being uncharitable to others.
That's the root.
It's in our thoughts and our judgments.
But what does our Lord mean when he says, do not judge and you will not be judged?
Obviously, you know, we have people who are doing public sins,
commit public sins in this world.
They say things.
They do things.
And we have said things and done things that were publicly sinful and wrong.
And do we pass a blind eye to this kind of thing?
Do we not judge this kind of thing?
I remember going to confession once and confessing that I didn't correct somebody
who had done something obviously wrong in my, my presence.
And the priest said, for your penance,
meditate on the words of our Lord, do not judge.
And I took that to, to mean that, you know, mind your own business
when other people do public things wrong.
But we can't mind our own business when it comes to charity,
when it comes to helping other people.
We need to correct them, correct their exterior actions.
But what does our Lord mean by do not judge?
St. Paul, uh, enlightens us.
He enlightens us a little on this subject when he says in Corinthians,
judge not before the time until the Lord comes,
who will light up the hidden things of darkness
and manifest the intentions of hearts.
And then it shall every man have his praise from God.
God will light up the hidden things of darkness
and manifest the intentions of hearts.
And that's what our Lord means when he says, do not judge.
Do not judge the intentions of hearts.
Do not judge the intentions of other people.
Because we can't know their intentions.
We can't read their minds.
And this is what the, this is what we always do.
We, in our, when we pass judgments,
we're reading the minds of other people
as if we can read their minds.
We read their hearts and know what they're thinking,
what their intentions were, what their motives are.
We cannot know those things.
We may be accidentally right.
But when it comes to the hearts of other people,
we can easily be wrong.
And most of the time we are.
Certainly the Pharisees here were wrong
in judging the hearts of these tax collectors
and judging them, judging them in an unfavorable light,
judging them without mercy, judging them that they were,
that they are sinners, that they are malicious,
that they have bad intentions.
This is really
what our Lord means when he says, do not judge.
Do not judge the intentions of other people
in an unfavorable way.
We can judge other people in a favorable way.
They did this thing wrong because they were tired
or they had a bad day or they don't have the upbringing
that perhaps I do or other good Christians, to excuse them,
find some way to mitigate their fault,
at least in our, in our minds,
so that we can practice charity towards them,
so that we will pray for them.
And this is what our Lord did in the cross
when he was butchered and crucified
and treated in the most contemptible way.
He still found a way to excuse his murderers by saying,
Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.
He found some way to excuse
or to mitigate the worst crime in the world.
And so we too have to find a way to excuse,
to overlook perhaps in some way, if we can do that.
Of course, if we're in a position of authority,
we have to correct the bad actions that are done exteriorly
if they're serious enough.
But we can't judge the intentions and still the intentions,
if we are, if we have to correct,
we still don't get involved in the intentions
in the hearts of people.
As St. Bernard says, if you cannot excuse the deed,
excuse the intention, think that it was some piece
of inadvertence or ignorance.
Think that it must have been natural forgetfulness.
Think that it was some sudden burst of impulse.
So think, thinking favorably of others.
Thinking positively about others,
if we can try to think positively of others.
And when it comes to judgments, there
are other pitfalls that we can fall into,
especially us spiritual-minded people,
we who are trying to practice virtue and grow in holiness.
We can turn internally into ourselves and judge ourselves.
We are called to do that, to be strict with ourselves
and lenient with others.
We have to be strict with ourselves in order to improve,
to overcome our faults, to root them out.
We have to focus on them, and we need to be strict to them.
We need to be meticulous about our own faults.
And we can get good at that.
That's what the saints do.
They are good at finding their faults
and taking them seriously and being deeply sorry for them.
And they get meticulous about themselves.
And perhaps if we're not to the point of sanctity
and great charity, we can take that meticulousness
and turn it towards our neighbor.
We can get meticulous and really refined
in finding their faults and seeing
all the minute nuances of their faults and get good at that,
and then lose sight of our own.
And that is the pitfall of, you know,
our journey towards sanctity and virtue.
We can turn it towards our neighbor.
St. Bonaventure says this, people who take themselves
to be spiritual men are usually more tempted than others
in this particular of judging and marking down others.
So as we're going in virtue, we think, oh,
I'm going to be less judgmental than others,
but it can be the opposite.
Even secular people, even those, even pagans,
can be less judgmental at times than we spiritually minded people
if we're not careful of that pitfall that Satan certainly
would try to push forward.
We have to focus on our own faults
and keep the focus there and practice charity,
excusing others, praying for others,
helping others in our good example and our words
to help them, but not to judge them
and not to.
Think unfavorably of them.
St. Bonaventure says again, when you see in your brother
something that displeases you, before you judge him,
turn your gaze within and see if there is anything in you
worthy of reprehension.
And if there be, turn your sentence against yourself
and condemn yourself in that in which you were minded
to condemn another, saying with the prophet,
it is I who have sinned, I who have done evil.
So the focus, again,
is on ourselves, on myself, and not if I'm going to turn
to my neighbor, I need to turn with a positive eye,
a charitable eye, and a helping eye,
helping word, and a helping prayer to them.
In the Chronicles of St. Francis,
there's a story of St. Leo, or Brother Leo,
who was one of the early followers of St. Francis.
He was the one that was on the mountain of La Verna
with St. Francis.
And when St. Francis died, St. Francis said,
you know, you're going to die, you're going to die,
and St. Francis received the stigmata
and gave us the story of the stigmata,
how our Holy Father Francis got it.
He had a vision, and so our Lord showed him a vision
of a group, a number of friars who were walking in procession,
all dazzling bright.
And in the midst of all those brothers, those friars,
he saw one that shone the brightest,
and a brilliant light shining from his eyes.
And he asked our Lord who that was,
and our Lord said that it was Brother Berard,
the very first companion of St. Francis.
And he shone brighter than all the others
because he always judged in a favorable light his neighbor,
whatever he saw in his neighbor.
And he always took others to be better than himself.
So this is the...
the message that we can have from this Feast of St. Matthew,
not to judge others, and if we do,
always to judge in a favorable light.
Let us ask St. Matthew's intercession to do that,
and our ladies' intercession and guidance and enlightenment
to practice this great virtue of charity.
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