Dear Parishioners,
 
Jesus tells us, “From the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”  I often reflect that the human heart is the receptacle of all we are and hope to be.  So, faith, hope and love should be the primary occupants in all our hearts.  St. Paul lectured us extensively on those three gifts a few weeks ago. 
 
Jesus puts it in stark terms—you can nurture evil in the human heart and be a force for destruction in the world or you can store up goodness and build the Kingdom of God by being a disciple of Christ in the vineyard of life.  Jesus uses the anthology of a good tree that bears good fruit reminding us that the fruit we bear in the world is a tell-tale sign of the goodness we bear in our hearts.  In his many parables and teachings, Jesus highlights many of the evils in the world and the story which begins our Gospel today highlights one of the evils that he hates most hypocrisy.  It is a subtle destructive evil that we are all capable of.  We judge and condemn others without first looking within ourselves.  Jesus even uses the word with great and pointed affirmation, “you hypocrite!”.  How many of us would he say that to?  I would hope as few as possible, but the brief gospel teaching before us reminds us how easy it is to fall into the trap of being a hypocrite. 
 
Let us all reflect and pray, in these remaining days before Lent, that we rise above judgment and condemnation and rather look into our own hearts and continue to build up the store of goodness by which we would most liked to be known and remembered.