If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.  This is one of those fairly well-known and often-quoted sayings of Our Lord, and it seems quite serious and quite hard and harsh.  It might seem like a pound of prevention for an ounce of cure.  An overreaction.  In fact, there were quite a few people in the earliest days of the church, who took this teaching quite literally and acted accordingly.  I want you to know that I’m not advocating that approach.  This is one of those times when we take the words of our Lord seriously rather than literally.  It’s just not what he meant.  He did not want a crowd of one-handed Cyclopses following him around.  But he is making a serious point.  And it’s this: it’s better to enter the Kingdom of Heaven with one eye than go to Hell with two.  That’s true.  That’s correct.  It’s a call to take very serious care about our priorities.  To use a similar kind of analogy: don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.  Don’t win the battle but lose the war.  

If you’ve got things that are holding you back from being the person you’re created to be, the person you know you can be, the person you want to be: you have to get that stuff out of your life.  Because it’s not worth it.  It’s better to enter the Kingdom of Heaven with one eye than go to Hell with two.  If your eye is causing you to sin, whatever that means in your particular life, and, instead of doing something about it, you just say, “Oh well, whatever” and decide to define yourself by the sinfulness of your eye rather than trying to correct it: that’s why you wind up in danger.  You become less “Who you really are” and more “Sinful-Eye-Person.”  Sin makes you less yourself.  Because you’re giving in to your malfunctions.  Your sins make you less interesting; less unique.  Sin is bland, and repetitive, and boring.  But God can do something about it. 

Whatever in my heart is causing me to sin, I can say to Our Lord, pluck it out.  He can, he does, and he will.  He will save us from the danger of eternal loss; and also: if we let him cleanse us of whatever it is, of envy, of impatience, of pride, of impurity, or lust, or sloth: whatever: if we give it to Christ and let him heal us: not only will we be ready for heaven but we will be so much more peaceful and joyful here on this earth, because we will be at peace in ourselves as well.  They say a saint is just a sinner who never gives up.  Never give up, never give up in the face of your own weakness.  Let God heal you, again and again.  It’s better not to go to Hell with two eyes.  It’s better to go to heaven with full sight restored.  Let God do that for you.