In today’s Gospel Our Lord warns us that being a “bad boy,” despite how culture today paints it, is never a good thing. If someone recognizes something to be evil, they avoid it; that is Ethics 101. That is why evil often tries to masquerade as good, to appear glamorous. God has created everything good, but if we use his creation for the purposes for which it was not intended, we can do evil, and it will surface sooner or later. Our Lord teaches us not to judge people, but he does teach us to judge actions: evil people do evil things, just as good people do good things. Even when someone does evil we recognize it as something good that has been corrupted or turned into something corrupting.
Our Lord teaches us what to do in the second part of today’s Gospel in order to determine what’s truly good and unmask what’s truly evil when it is hard to tell. First, if someone pays lip service to Our Lord and doesn’t truly do his will and seek to follow him, that is hypocrisy, and that is evil. We have to pray for people to know Our Lord and follow him with all their heart. Second, evil people may seem to build their lives on solid ground, but the path of evil is a path to destruction: it is building on a shaky foundation that will not stand the test of time, and is actually abandoning the one path that matters. Our Lord’s victory on the cross showed how solid a foundation his life was based upon. He will show us the sure path and a solid foundation for our lives if we let him.
Let’s pray today for the conversion of sinners and for the insight to build our lives on Our Lord as a solid foundation.
Readings: 1 Timothy 1:15–17; Psalm 113:1b–7; Luke 6:43–49.