What Actually Matters

Now indeed [then] it is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated? Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers. // 1 Corinthians 6:7-8

An oval-shaped crack formed on the inmost pane of the window as my child leaned against it—a window that had been pressed up to countless times before. We had just finished sweeping up the remains of a broken glass cup. Words of blame flew around the room as we vented our frustration at this avoidable accident. But these kinds of mistakes in our family often follow the literary “rule of threes,” and I was not entirely surprised two mornings later when I discovered as I got into the minivan to go to daily Mass that I had left a window down during the previous evening’s thunderstorm.

For the first half of Mass, my mind swirled with strategies for drying out the car and my gut felt sick with regret. I tried to push aside the distracting thoughts, to be present at Mass, to stop blaming myself and my family. They were all simple mistakes, and our material property is just that: material, finite, passing. 

And that is when it hit me: I should feel as sorry for my sins, as I feel for leaving that car window open.

In today’s First Reading, Saint Paul is writing to the Corinthians about their tendency to take each other to the civil court. He tells them to instead settle things between themselves, and if they can’t do so, then just live with the failures between each other (see 1 Corinthians 6:1-11). Besides examining when we should take serious matters to court, this reading also applies to our everyday interactions with each other in our homes, workplaces, and parishes.

When I blame others, I am more likely than not going to “inflict injustice” and commit a sin. Further, getting all worked up about a small, human mistake is not going to solve problems. Rather, I should charitably put up with the little things. And I should save my accusations for my own conscience and my failure to love and remember to forgive as I have been forgiven.

Lord, help me to know my sins and be sorry for them, and to love my neighbor as myself. Amen.