Life unmasks us
A good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart (Luke 6, 45)
Jesus told a parable to his disciples: ‘Can one blind man guide another? Surely both will fall into a pit? The disciple is not superior to his teacher; the fully trained disciple will always be like his teacher. Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the plank in your own? How can you say to your brother, “Brother, let me take out the splinter that is in your eye,” when you cannot see the plank in your own? Hypocrite! Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take out the splinter that is in your brother’s eye.‘There is no sound tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again a rotten tree that produces sound fruit. For every tree can be told by its own fruit: people do not pick figs from thorns, nor gather grapes from brambles. A good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart; a bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness. For a man’s words flow out of what fills his heart.’ (Luke 6, 39-45)
Jesus affirms that the real battlefield between good and evil is within the heart of every man: here good resolutions become good works or temptations become sins according to what our will decides. But how do we know if we or others are doing good or bad? The fruit of our own or other people's works shows unequivocally what prevails in the hearts of those who perform them, and that’s without taking into account all the excuses we often find for not doing the good we could: life unmasks us exteriorly and the Truth always surfaces.
