8th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
First Reading: Sir 27:4-7
Second Reading: 1 Cor 15:54-58 
Gospel Reading: Lk 6:39-45

Just as the fruit discloses “the cultivation of a tree,” so “a person’s speech discloses the cultivation of the mind,” for, as Jesus says, “it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”

Our speech is the fruit of our hearts; what really counts is what is in our hearts. However, just as we can change a tree’s fruit by pruning, so we can change what is in our hearts by guarding our speech.

“When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide the rest of their bodies,” St. James says. It is the same with ships: “they are directed by very small rudders.”

“The tongue is something like that,” he says. If we are “without fault in speech,” we can “control” our entire body.

What we talk about not only betrays what is in our heart, but also determines it. If we do not talk about what is in our heart, it seems to wither. Accordingly, St. Paul tells us to confess with our lips as well as believe in our hearts that Jesus rose from the dead.

Now there are two changes of heart, both much needed, that we can initiate by changing our speech. One involves chastity; the other, charity.

I myself have noticed a great increase in the freedom and frequency with which we talk about sex: natural and perverted, lawful and unlawful. (Listen to yourself and others for a few days.) Our sexual appetites have always been difficult to control, but such talk makes it even more difficult.

In the early 1940s, C.S. Lewis said, “You and I, for the last twenty years, have been fed all day long on good solid lies about sex. We have been told, till one is sick of hearing it, that sexual desire is in the same state as any of our other natural desires and that if only we abandon the silly old Victorian idea of hushing it up, everything in the garden will be lovely. It is not true. The moment you look at the facts, and away from the propaganda, you see that it is not.”

That was almost 80 years ago, and society’s sexual behaviour today is much worse.

There should not be “any obscene, silly, or suggestive talk” among us, St. Paul said; “all that is out of place.” “As for lewd conduct or promiscuousness or lust of any sort, let them not even be mentioned among you; your holiness forbids this.”

So much for chastity. Now for charity.

We know that calumny is wrong: telling lies about our neighbour. But we must also remember that detraction is wrong: disclosing our neighbours’ faults or failings without an objectively valid reason.

A teacher I know had to share another teacher’s room one year, and the other teacher was nasty about it, so my friend tried to find another room. That involved talking to other teachers, and he found himself telling them, quite unnecessarily, about his colleague’s nastiness.

“Detraction and calumny destroy the reputation and honour of one’s neighbour,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Everyone has “a natural right to the honour of his name”: to reputation and respect. “Detraction and calumny offend against the virtues of justice and charity.”

It is unjust, not just uncharitable, to disclose someone’s faults because we think it “only right” that others should know them. We should “say only the good things” others need to hear, St. Paul said: “things that will really help them.”

We cannot become holy just by putting tape over our mouths. However, by guarding our speech, we can begin putting into practice a heartfelt desire to become holy. It is difficult, but not impossible. “Be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord,” St. Paul says, “because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.”