Notre Dame design majors are experts at judging. To craft logos and streamline processes, we quickly decide which solutions are working and which are not. Although politeness is appreciated, frank judgment is more helpful. To judge is to make progress.

After four years spent honing my critical eye, I have developed a judgment habit. By the end of my senior year, I tended to think of myself in conditional statements: “If I get a B, then I didn’t try hard enough.” “If I stay in tonight, then I’m wasting the last days of college.” As much as I try not to, even now I evaluate myself and others based on perceived labels and categorizations.

In today’s gospel, Jesus says, “As you judge, so will you be judged.” On first reading, God is the judge of the second clause. Jesus warns us the less charitably we judge others, the less charitably God will judge us. But in a different reading, Jesus cautions us to avoid a more near-term judgment. We become the judges in the second clause. “As you judge others, so you will judge yourselves.”

Jesus speaks of a wooden beam that one must remove before seeing another’s face clearly. Of course, Jesus is using the eye and beam metaphor to remind us to address our flaws. But what if the beam also symbolizes our constant self-judgment?

Maybe, instead of telling us to fix our imperfections before pointing out others’ shortcomings, Jesus is telling us to judge ourselves with kindness and charity. This way, we are already in the habit of suspending judgment by the time we interact with others.

The old saying goes, “Watch your thoughts, for they become your words.” Perhaps, in today’s gospel, Jesus is telling us to practice self-forgiveness, so that we can forgive others.