During today’s homily, our priest supposed that were we to follow this Gospel literally, we would all be blind. Sin touches each of us, and each of us face our own set of temptations. This truth dovetails nicely as I read the plotters correspondence in The Screwtape Letters. I’m not called to mutilate my body, but to excise with extreme prejudice, “whatever leads me to sin.”

A tall order to depart from my place of comfort for the pains of conversion.

First Reading: Numbers 11:25-29

Second Reading: James 5:1-6

Gospel: Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48