The gospel For Friday, the 23rd week in Ordinary Time is taken from Luke 6:39 to the 42nd verse. Jesus told his disciples a parable. Can a blind person guide? A blind person will not both fall into a pit. No disciple is superior to the teacher, but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?

How can you say to your brother, brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite. Remove the wooden beam from your eye first. Then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye. In these passages of Luke, we see the disciples becoming apostles. And apostles have great responsibility.

And one of the things that would make them true apostles is that they experience things and learn from those experiences, not just talk about them from some kind of intellectual understanding. In other words, unless you go through the processes that you are going to teach, you cannot truly teach effectively. Please reflect on the meaning of these scriptures. And after the music, I will close with a prayer. Sam Satan Sa Closing prayer. Father, bless us with authenticity.

Help us not to be talking about something that we were told, but about something we’ve experienced. Experience is the greatest teacher. So open us to all that you’re longing to teach us through the experiences of our life. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.