THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS AS THEY APPEAR TO BE!

It seems to me that one of the most destructive weapons of humans is that of judging our neighbor. The Commandment of God tells us: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Is this not what led to the crucifixion of our Lord? We do not even know ourselves, and yet we think we can judge the hearts and intentions of others, based on something we see them do or hear them say. We are quick to "rush to judgment" based on what we see and hear in the social media, or even from a friend or neighbor. We refuse to wait for all the facts, or until someone has been examined by the proper authorities and in a court of law. What is worse, we usually judge them with hatred and malice in our hearts. This is especially dangerous for Christians who have little self-knowledge. Satan can even deceive us into believing that our rash judgments come from the Holy Spirit. This must be Satan’s most powerful counterfeit, but the fruit reveals the truth.

So often, people think they can see into the soul of another person and know them better than that person knows his own self. This often happens in marriages and friendships, where one thinks they know the other, completely, and there is no more to learn. It brings relationships to a standstill. We can never fully know our own self, let alone that of another person. Love deepens as we grow in our knowledge of others, but once we think we know them through and through, we have made an idol of clay out of them and deny them life, and love dies.

Often, the faults we see in another person are merely the projection of our own faults. We judge them, and in judging them, we judge ourselves. Sometimes, what we see in others is merely their shadow, or a mask. We see their unlived potential and mistake it for the person. We see temptations they are struggling against, and we mistake them for the person. We pass judgment on them, slander them, gossip about them, and try to warn others to avoid them or beware of them. Is this not what they did to Jesus?

In order to avoid evil, sometimes we need to be able to judge the actions of others, and the fruit that comes from those actions, whether they are good or evil, wise or foolish, premeditated or accidental, with or without outside influence, but we cannot judge the motives or intentions of the heart of another person. Neither can we know the culpability of another person. We cannot condemn them or pronounce sentence upon them, or take the law into our own hands.

Today is the feast of St. Francis de Sales. He has given some wise counsel in regards to judging and detraction:

"Our Crucified Savior, unable to excuse the sin of those who crucified him, minimized their malice by pleading their ignorance. So if we cannot excuse a sin, let us at least be compassionate, attributing it to such extenuating causes as ignorance or weakness. May we then never judge our neighbor? No, Philothea, never; even in a court of justice, it is God who is the judge; true, he makes uses of magistrates that his judgments may be heard, but they are only his spokesmen and interpreters and as such should pronounce only that judgment they have learned from him. If they act otherwise, following their own feelings, then it is they alone who judge and who in consequence are judged, for it is forbidden for men, as such, to judge others. To see or know something is not to judge it; for judgment, in the sense used in the Scriptures, presupposes some difficulty great or small, true or apparent, which must be resolved; that is why we read: “The man who does not believe is already judged; there is no need of judgment for there is no doubt of their damnation.

We may, it is true, speak freely of infamous and notorious public sinners so long as we do so in a spirit of charity and mercy, avoiding arrogance and presumption and not taking pleasure in their misfortune, for this would mark us as mean and base. This does not apply, of course, to those who are openly enemies of God and of his Church, for we must denounce heretics, schismatics and their leaders to the best of our ability, charity bidding us cry wolf when the flock is in danger." (St. Francis De Sales)