UNCOMFORTABLE WORDS

“The brothers were talking about which teaching of Christ was most important. Abba John the Dwarf, who had been silent as all spoke, said, ‘A house is not built by beginning at the top and working down. You must begin with the foundation.’ The brothers with him asked, ‘What do you mean?' He said, ‘Rather than talk about the Lord’s most important words, keep His simplest. Before you can rise to love God, love your neighbor. All the commandments of Christ depend on this one.' ”—from The Sayings of the Desert Fathers

It’s not easy to love each other. It’s not easy to even like each other. The most popular sin is probably not the one you’d guess: it’s judging and criticizing each other. It’s the Pharisee’s prayer, “I thank Thee, O God, that I’m not like him.”

When I’m judged and criticized, my first reaction is usually to feel indignant, then angry. My first words will be defensive, to show I don’t deserve the criticism, or aggressive, to attack my critic.

One day I was saying the Confiteor, a prayer recited before Mass. “I confess…that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word and deed, by my fault, by my own fault, by my own most grievous fault…” While reciting these words of penitence, I wondered how sorry was I, really? How much did I really believe what I was saying? “I confess to Almighty God…and to you, my brethren,” but how would I respond if you agreed with my self-assessment? How would I take it, not if I confessed my sins, buy you did—if you told me—or others—what a sinner I was, and what my sins were?

My reaction wouldn’t be so pious. I’d attack you for saying about me what I was saying about myself.

Abba John of the Ladder says “It is not the one who criticizes himself who reveals his humility (for does not everyone have to put up with himself?), rather it is the man who continues to love the person who criticizes him.”

The most basic commandments of the Lord Jesus, the ones that lay the foundation for our love of God, aren’t hard to understand. It’s not the understanding of them that matters, says Abba John, but the keeping. It’s not when I love my family and friends, those who think I’m the cat’s pajamas that the Gospel grows in my heart. It’s when I show love to those who criticize, who judge, who condemn me.

That’s what Jesus did.