The tenth step on St. John’s Ladder of Ascent, is SLANDER. Malice and the remembrance of wrongs naturally lead to gossip and slander. I am sure that all of us can recall when we have heard persons go on for years criticizing what someone once said or did without any real consideration that the object of their slander or derision has long since repented and been forgiven by God. What a shameful sin this is! God, who alone has authority to forgive sins, who alone is without sin, does not hold the sins of penitents against them, yet we sinners refuse to forgive. Thus St. John writes: To pass judgment on another is to usurp shamelessly a prerogative of God, and to condemn is to ruin one’s soul. No doubt St. John had in mind the words of Paul: Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls.

To pass judgment is to usurp shamelessly a prerogative of God because only someone without sin has any right to pass judgment. Thus with these simple words the Lord shamed those who were ready to stone an adulteress: He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first. Note that “he who is without sin.” There may be sins we have not committed, but this does not give us license to get on our moral high horse and condemn others because they commit a specific kind of sin that we have not.

Christians are often guilty of this sort of discrimination. We may say, “I am a sinner,” but often what we really mean is, “I am a sinner, but not like that person.” “I am a sinner, but I don’t commit that sin. We accept “normal” sins and are only outraged by “abnormal” sins. And by what right, and on what basis, have we decided that one person’s weakness is more worthy of condemnation that our own? I believe this step generates great food for thought!
What do you think?