Looking at Ourselves Closely

October 26, 2025 – 30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/102625.cfm)

“Pigeonholing, labeling or putting a person into a box” – these are expressions that tell us how we have arrived into a conclusion about a person. It is usually in a negative sense and sometimes demeaning and insulting. We experience this when people around us only see and recognize the mistake or failure or sin that we have committed. Our friends, neighbors, colleagues or even family members could believe that we are hopeless and beyond redemption.

It is devastating to be judged by people around. Such labels make us feel less human. They make us feel undeserving of love and existence. This is because of insulting, demeaning, and degrading labels applied to us. It is as if there is nothing more in us except our sins and failures in life.

We can also be the one who points our judging finger. We do this because of the mistakes and failures of others in their life. We could also assume as the righteous individual who try scrutinize people, searching for their faults and failures. We could be that mean person. Our main intention is to bring other people down. We shame and gossip about their weaknesses to hide our own sins. And indeed, this happens in our circle of friends, communities and our workplaces.

I had this classmate who seemed to be always untidy. He was always late and worst would fail in his tests. Yet, when we moved up to the next grade, something surprised us about him. Though he still looked untidy and came late for class, but, his exams got better results. Every time he passed a test, there was malice in our minds. We suspected him to be have been cheating.

Our classroom adviser could not even believe that he had the potential. Some of us even felt bad whenever he got a higher score than those who usually got high scores.

We judged him that he did not have the capacity. We judged him of his past behavior and failures. As a result, we failed to recognize that he had actually the capacity. We refused to believe in him because we felt insecure of his capacities and potentials.

Our expressions like, “Bogo man na siya! Tanga man na siya! Burikat na siya! Kawatan na siya!” – somehow express our insecurity behind our self-righteous words.

The Gospel of Luke this very Sunday conveys this conscience-disturbing message to us as a Christian Community. Jesus reminds us at the end of the Gospel today, “for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

 To become self-righteous blinds us. Thinking highly too much of ourselves prevents us from asking God to show his mercy upon us. Why? because we already think that we do not need God’s mercy.

Thus, the self-righteous attitude of the Pharisee is basically a denial of God. It was a rejection of God’s mercy because we feel that we do not need God. This attitude leads us to build invisible thick walls that separate us from others.

We might still have that idea of condemning our brothers and sisters who were considered terrible sinners.

On this Sunday, Jesus invites us to look closely at ourselves – to examine better our intentions, thoughts and actions. By this awareness it may lead us to recognize as well our failures and sins.

This was what the Tax Collector showed to us. This was  also the reason why he could not look up to heaven. When he saw himself, he felt disgusted for the sins and failures he had done against God and his neighbors. He must have cheated and stolen a lot of money.

However, looking at himself, he realized his need of mercy and the need to be converted. That same realization will hopefully lead us to also join the tax collector in praying, “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Such prayer and humility reaches the heart of God. The Book of Sirach in the first reading tells us that “the prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal.”

God, our Just Judge, will come to our rescue and show us his mercy when we also begin to honestly acknowledge our sins and failures. The God of Justice listens to our petitions especially when the Lord also finds the poverty in our heart. This means that our heart is empty of any self-righteousness, of any self-satisfaction and self-justification.

As the Lord defends us and shows us mercy, we are called to be more understanding to those who failed and sinned. Not in the sense of condoning and tolerating such failures and sins. It is important that as we exercise understanding, we also need to confront each other of our mistakes and failures. We are invited to be merciful rather than to be condemning.

Thus, to both the righteous and the sinners, God does not condemn. God rather desires our healing, reconciliation and fullness of life for all.

This calls us to see more in the person of our brothers and sisters, to stop our harsh judgments and condemnation. We are called to stop our gossiping, image shaming, name-calling and bullying that only destroy the person of our brother or sister. Such ways of destroying a person is not God’s ways. It is of the devil.

Today, I would like to invite you – to embrace a family member, a relative, a friend or a neighbor whom we know have sinned against us and those whom we have wronged because of our words and actions. This way, reconciliation and peace begins in us making us witnesses of God’s mercy and forgiveness. Hinaut pa.