Gossip

Life’s lesson warns us not to say anything about someone if it is not a positive contribution to the person’s life. How many people heed this important lesson of life? Few or none, if you ask me! Yet the Holy Book states: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you”. This moral imperative is called the Golden Rule, cf. Lev. 19:18;Tobit 4:15; Mt 7:12; Lk. 6:31. It is sad and indeed unfortunate that people say things to tarnish the image of others behind their backs, things that may even be untrue, injurious and damaging to people’s lives; things that may have the potentiality of destroying their future. This is gossip, rumor, tittle-tattle, whispers, canards, tidbits, etc. etc. and those who have this as their stock in-trade are gossips, scandalmongers, gossipmongers, tattlers, busybodies, muckrakers, whisperers, and flibbertigibbets. Look around and see if you can spot any around you. Gossips are instigators and Christian murderers. There is nothing like innocent gossip or harmless tale-tale. Saying things that are untrue about someone or anyone is as uncharitable as depriving the person of freedom and the right to life.

The Holy Father, Pope Francis stated clearly on September 13 during his morning homily on gossip, that, “when people participate in this sin, we imitate Cain’s gesture in killing his brother Abel”. When we talk about others, we are indirectly saying that we are better than them. We ignore our faults and failures and concentrate on the faults and failures of others. Christ asks us simple questions: “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye”, Mt 7:3-5. Pope Francis warns, “Those who live judging their neighbor, speaking ill of their neighbor, are hypocrites, because they lack the strength and the courage to look to their own shortcomings.” Therefore, “he/she who has hatred in his/her heart for his brother/sister is a murderer, he/she walks in darkness; he/she who judges his/her brother/sister walks in darkness”. Each time we participate in gossip and tale-tale, we are Christian murderers following in the footsteps of our patron saint Cain, the first murderer in history.

The pope concluded his homily with this warning: “Gossip always has a criminal side to it. There is no such thing as innocent gossip. The tongue is to be used to praise God, but when we use our tongue to speak ill of our brothers and sisters, we are using it to kill God”; “the image of God is in our brother or sister”. If we see ourselves as brothers and sisters in the Lord, created in the image and likeness of God, we will be slow in destroying that image of God in each other. In our lives together in the Church, our community or in our families, there is bound to be misunderstanding and conflicts but the solution is not in tearing each other apart. Neither does it in lie in engaging in character assassination. It is always in looking for the good of each other, in seeing potentiality for growth in everyone and in being joyful at our scanty triumphs. Gossip will only help in bringing quarrel, suspicion and in sowing a seed of discord and disunity among us. May God save us from the mouths of gossips! Amen and Amen and Amen!!!