Our Lord told us that we would be judged by the same judgment we make. He also said we shouldn’t judge (at all), lest we be judged ourselves. But then again, he admonished us repeatedly to repent. How can we repent, lest we be convicted, and how can we be convicted, lest we judge? The Church counsels us to make a daily examination of conscience, but to what end, if we are not to judge? And how can we confess our sins, unless we know our sins? All the confusion in such apparent contradiction lies in language.  Translations can’t keep pace with evolving semantic nuances. That’s one reason that reading is never mere passive reception of someone’s monologue, but always active, and always a dialogue, even—or perhaps especially—when we’re reading Holy Scripture.

What do we mean by judgment? When our Lord referred to “judgment,” we know he meant condemnation. We should not condemn others, lest we be condemned ourselves. What he did not mean is discernment. Our daily examination of conscience, the source of our necessary repentance is not judgment, but discernment.

The deceiver’s favorite device is misuse of language. He would have us believe that our Lord commands us not to discern, to understand, to comprehend, to distinguish one thing from another thing. The confusion of apparent contradiction is the result. So is the contemporary confusion of (mostly) well-intentioned people. The evil fruit of this deception becomes visible in such legal absurdities as “hate speech” and “right to choose,” and other nonsense (literally, literal nonsense). The prototype may be “anti-discrimination,” wherein we’re commanded by the State not to distinguish one thing from another.

So, how can we tell who’s leading us and who’s misleading us? Examine the language. It’s the word that reveals its speaker, just as it’s the Word that revealed the Speaker.