The Plank in our Eye

In today’s Gospel, I was struck by the image of someone with a plank in his or her eye trying to examine the eye of another. The plank would physically hold them at a distance from the other person. It would literally keep everyone around them at an arm’s distance. It is a bit of a humorous image, the idea of seeing people walking around with 2x4’s protruding from their heads. But the fact that we all do walk around keeping others at a distance is not very funny.

Though most of us will, fortunately, never experience a physical plank in our eye, we all do have something that puts distance between ourselves and others; sin. Sin keeps us from experiencing closeness with the people around us.

Even worse, sin puts distance between us and God. The Lord desires closeness with us, but He honors our free will by respecting our choice to turn away. Like a plank in our eye, sin can distort the way that we see and experience the world around us. It can blind us to the blessings in our life and cause us to fail to recognize the ways others around us are reaching out in love and support.

Through my work, I have seen firsthand the broken relationships caused by our own sinfulness. Thankfully, Jesus provided the means for repairing our sight and restoring our intimacy with God and others. The sacrament of Confession allows us to take time to identify the “planks” in our life (an important step in a world that often keeps us busy enough to ignore them!) and then surrender them to the Lord so that he can offer us forgiveness and healing.

As the season of Lent draws near, now is the perfect time to remove the planks from our eyes, to better experience the love and mercy God desires to offer us.