Wisdom 1:1-7 / Luke 17:1-6
The examination of conscience is a spiritual exercise in which we examine ourselves before the Lord in prayer and to reflect on how we had been in union with God and how we had followed His ways.
One question that we may have to ask ourselves honestly is this: How many lies have I committed today?
Yes, lies. Not just spoken lies, but also lies in action, e.g., hypocrisy, craftiness, cunning, scheming, deceit, deception, etc.
More importantly, we need to ask ourselves: How did my life get so cluttered with so many lies?
The answer is simply this - we deceive ourselves into believing that one little lie will be alright for just this one time.
But the truth is that one little lie will begin to complicate our lives. And it will multiply until our whole life becomes one big lie.
That is what the 1st reading is saying: that Wisdom will never make its way into a crafty soul, nor stay in a body that is in debt to sin.
Yes, the Spirit of the Lord shuns a person of deceit and lies and deception.
The plain truth is that if we can live with one sin, then we can also live with many sins.
Jesus warns us in today's gospel that an unrepentant sinner is an obstacle to others and we have to watch ourselves of the sins we commit.
So if we desire to be truly wise, then we must be at odds with sin and detest sin.
Because true wisdom, the wisdom that comes from God is at odds with sin and deceit.
It is only with divine wisdom that we can see that virtue, honesty, faithfulness and humility are truly the ways we should live our lives.