FOLLOW THE WAY OF LOVE 

October  25, Monday

Thirtieth Week In Ordinary Time

 

We are sons and daughters of God because the Spirit of Christ, the perfect Son, is alive in us. With Christ and through his Spirit, we can call God our Father. He is a father with a love warm and tender as that of a mother. God is not a paternalistic Father. He respects our freedom. He wants us to be responsible and mature and to give him a free answer of love. He wants us to serve him as spiritual people, that is, people moved by the Spirit, without any slavish attitude.

The stooped woman whom Jesus cured is just one sample of his love. Again, the legalists protest because Jesus cured a sick person on the Sabbath. Jesus appeals to their common sense. The Sabbath is a day of God, a day on which we remember the goodness of God and thank him for his love. Isn’t the day of the Lord the best day on which we can pass on the love of the Lord to one another and create one another anew?

 

First Reading: Romans 8:12-17

So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!

^15-17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!

 

Gospel: Luke 13:10-17

He was teaching in one of the meeting places on the Sabbath. There was a woman present, so twisted and bent over with arthritis that she couldn’t even look up. She had been afflicted with this for eighteen years. When Jesus saw her, he called her over. “Woman, you’re free!” He laid hands on her and suddenly she was standing straight and tall, giving glory to God.

The meeting-place president, furious because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the congregation, “Six days have been defined as work days. Come on one of the six if you want to be healed, but not on the seventh, the Sabbath.”

But Jesus shot back, “You frauds! Each Sabbath every one of you regularly unties your cow or donkey from its stall, leads it out for water, and thinks nothing of it. So why isn’t it all right for me to untie this daughter of Abraham and lead her from the stall where Satan has had her tied these eighteen years?”

When he put it that way, his critics were left looking quite silly and red-faced. The congregation was delighted and cheered him on.

 

Prayer

God our Father,
we come to you in all humility
as we acknowledge to you that we have failed
and now seek your forgiveness.
Straighten us Lord, lift us up,
recreate us anew,
and fill us with your love.
Make us lift up one another
and give thanks to you,

our merciful and living God,
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Celebrate life, not the law

Today’s passage is an illustration of the unwillingness of the religious leadership to bear fruit.
According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus began his public ministry with the proclamation of his manifesto in the synagogue in Nazareth. Here Jesus is seen fulfilling his professed mission: to set free the oppressed [4:18]. This would be the last time Luke would present Jesus in a synagogue.

Luke goes to the detail of the story and tells us that the person cured was a woman. In a patriarchal Israel, women were among those most oppressed and a crippled person was regarded as cursed. Luke pays attention not to miss the significance of the event. If she were in Jerusalem, she wouldn’t be allowed to enter the temple because she was crippled, that is, punished by God.

Our pains and sufferings do not go unnoticed before God. The suffering woman immediately grabs the attention of Jesus. Luke went on to narrate that she was suffering from her infirmity for 18 years. There is a certain symbolism in the fact that she was badly stooped and was not able to stand up straight. She represents all the people who are despised, abandoned and bowed down with all the burdens and worries of their lives.

Jesus saw the woman, called her to him, laid his hand on her and immediately she stood up straight and began thanking God. Even in such a spectacular healing, the synagogue official is so furious. He doesn’t confront Jesus, but the crowd. Do not look for healings on a sabbath day! In fact, it was not the woman who asked for a healing, instead, Jesus healed her even without she asked for it.

Jesus was quick to seize the opportunity. Sabbath in its original meaning was as a celebration of life and of freedom. It was connected to God’s resting after the work of creation had finished and later on, to celebrate the Hebrews’ liberation from the slavery of Egypt. Over the period of centuries, the day of celebration had become a rigid and lifeless observance.

Sometimes, similar things do happen in our liturgies too. There are people who complain of the altar-servers not wearing black shoes while serving at the altar, while they have no idea about the readings and the Gospel of the day! We are as good as the synagogue official to point fingers at others.

The story is an example of taking the beam out of our own eye before dealing with the speck in someone else’s or of none being so blind as those who refuse to see. Once again, it is the religious leaders who were sad for the miracle of Jesus, while the ordinary people, joyfully marvelled at his works.

 

Video available on youtube: Celebrate life, not the law