October 29, 2018
Monday
30th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Eph 4:32—5:8
Gospel: Luke 13:10-17
Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath and a crippled woman was there. An evil spirit had kept her bent for eighteen years so that she could not straighten up at all. On seeing her, Jesus called her and said, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” Then he laid his hands upon her and immediately she was made straight and praised God.But the ruler of the synagogue was indignant because Jesus had performed this healing on the Sabbath day and he said to the people, “There are six days in which to work; come on those days to be healed and not on the Sabbath.”But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! E-veryone of you unties his ox or his donkey on the Sabbath and leads it out of the barn to give it water. And here you have a daughter of Abraham whom Satan had bound for eighteen years. Should she not be freed from her bonds on the Sabbath?”When Jesus said this, all his opponents felt ashamed. But the people rejoiced at the many wonders that happened through him.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Discrimination on the basis of sexuality was normal in the time of Jesus. But Jesus endeavored to swim against this cultural current. We see the total picture of Jesus’ aversion towards discrimination on the basis of sexuality by analyzing closely how the whole Gospel of Luke presents Jesus’ miracles.
Luke has a peculiar style of juxtaposing incidents revealing Jesus’ compassion towards men, with incidents revealing the same compassion towards women. Consider Luke 7:11-17 and Luke 8:49-56. In the former, Jesus brought back to life the only son of a widow already carried out of the city gate inside a coffin. In the latter, Jesus brought back to life the daughter of a male synagogue official. Today’s Gospel account of a crippled woman cured by Jesus on a Sabbath (Luke 13:10-17) could also be juxtaposed with the cure of a man with a dropsy on a Sabbath narrated in Luke 14:1-6.
These are just some of several juxtapositions that show how Jesus swayed against the practice of discriminating women at a time when even women themselves believed men were superior.
Today, discrimination by reason of sexuality is already a thing of the past. Women are even better off in many respects in our society today. But application of laws has remained subservient to the rich and the powerful. In this sense we are still struggling against discrimination on the basis of social status. In the interest of equity, when laws can be bent anyway, why not bend it for those who have less in life? – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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