Ecclesiasticus 27:4-7 / 1 Cor 15:54-58 / Luke 6:39-45
Let us begin with a riddle: what has words but does not speak? - A book.
What has words but no one reads? – the Terms and Conditions, usually in small print (maybe they don’t want us to read it)
It is also said that actions speak louder than words. Of course we presume that those are edifying actions. Yet for those of us who are drivers, we also know that on the road, some hand gestures done with a finger can mean very impolite words.
What has words but no one wants to hear – an angry person. The tongue has no bones but it can break the heart. And the tongue of an angry person can cause a heart attack, to the one who is listening and maybe even to the one using it.
The tendency is that we use bad words to express our angry and bitter feelings. And there are some days the supply of available swear words are inefficient to meet our demands. Oh yes, we have those kind of days.
But bad moods and volatile emotions are never reasons to curse and use cruel words. And even if we regret it later, we can’t simply brush it off with “I didn’t mean what I said”. No. We meant what we said. Just that at that moment, we couldn’t control it and we let it fly off our mouth before tasting those words.
The problem is that we will never know how long our words will stay in someone’s heart, even long after we have forgotten that we said them, whether for better or for worse.
Already from this, we are reminded of the lessons of life. One of which is that we must control our tongue when our heart is bitter. Certainly, silence is better than angry words.
And also angry words are spoken with a raised voice. But instead of raising our voice, let us raise our words. It is the rain that grows flowers, not the thunder.
But words, whether kind or otherwise, are just expressions from a source. The source of our words is none other than our heart.
And that’s why Jesus said in today’s gospel passage that a man’s words flow out from what fills his heart.
And that’s why words can heal or hurt. It is from one heart to another. Only a heart can heal another heart, and a heart can break another heart, with words that flow from the heart.
As Jesus said, a good man draws what is good from the goodness of his heart; a bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness from his heart.
There is this story of two altar servers.
Two altar servers lived in two different cities, serving in different churches, but both of them wanted to become priests. Both of them had the exact same experience.
One altar server was late for Mass. Because he was in a hurry to do everything he needed to do, he accidentally knocked the chalice that contained the wine. After the Mass, the priest called the boy and shouted, “Get out of here! You’ll never serve as an altar server again!”
At another church, the altar server was also late for Mass. And he too, knocked the chalice that contained the wine, spilling it onto the floor. After the Mass, the priest, called the altar server and said, “It's all right. You'll do better next time. You'll be a fine priest for God someday.”
Thirty years later, the second altar server became Archbishop Fulton Sheen, one of the most loved religious leaders in America.
And the other altar server? He became Joseph Tito, an atheist and the ruthless dictator of Yugoslavia.
Words are powerful. They can heal or hurt. They can encourage or destroy.
Every day, we hear polite and kind words, as well as impolite and hurtful words. And then what happens? Our heart is like a sink-trap. All the polite and kind words get drained away quickly and what is left in the sink-trap are the remnants, and in this case, the impolite and hurtful words.
Much as those remnants in the sink-trap are to be gotten rid of, somehow we let them stay there, right in our hearts. And of course those things don’t do any good to our hearts.
And today, Jesus talks about what is stored in our hearts. He reminds us that our hearts are created to be good, because our hearts are created by God.
Jesus wants to clean our hearts of all that rubbish that is caught in the sink-trap of our hearts.
Jesus wants to clean and heal our hearts and make it a store of goodness. Jesus wants to make our hearts like His.
There are many ways that we can let Him clean our hearts. One way is through prayer. Another can be through the Devotion to the Sacred Heart.
We have just launched a new revised edition of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart and it is now available.
Just as a heart can break another heart, so too a heart can also heal another heart.
Jesus wants to clean and heal our hearts with His blood and cleansing water that flows from His heart.
Let us prepare our hearts to be cleansed and healed through the Devotion to the Sacred Heart and through atonement and reparation.
May we let Jesus fill our hearts with His love, so that from what fills our hearts, our mouths will give thanks and praise, and proclaim the Good News of God’s love to others.