Saturday, September 07, 2013 22nd Week in
Ordinary Time 1st
Reading: Col 1: 21-23
Gospel: Lk 6:1-5
One Sabbath Jesus was going through the corn fields and his disciples began to pick heads of grain crushing them in their hands for food. Some of the Pharisees asked them, “Why do you do what is forbidden on the Sabbath?” Then Jesus spoke, “Have you never read what David did when he and his men were hungry?” He entered the house of God, took and ate the bread of the offering and even gave some to his men, though only priests are allowed to eat that bread.” And Jesus added, “The Son of Man is Lord and rules over the Sabbath.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Jesus found the laws of his times oppressive. Among the victims were his own disciples. The Pharisees enlarged their otherwise innocent acts of picking grains beyond proportion and made them appear as serious as harvesting – an act prohibited by the Sabbath Law.
God gave the Law to Moses under the covenant of love precisely to free the people from oppression. But some zealous religious leaders crafted rules and regulations stricter than the Law itself. Jesus’ heart bled for the victims and exclaimed: Come unto me you who find life burdensome and I will refresh you; take my yoke upon your shoulder for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Jesus restored the Law to its proper place. His declaration that the Sabbath was made for man and not the other way around was an invitation to reflect on the centrality of human beings to God’s plan. In the creation narrative of Genesis, God created man only after he had prepared the world for him. God equipped the world, so to speak, before he created him. He even created him in his image and likeness and set him as master of creation. This preferential option cannot allow laws that oppress rather than empower.
Today we struggle with the issue on pork barrel allocations to Congress. While the Supreme Court in PHILCONSA vs. Enriquez (1994) had already declared that proposing, selecting and identifying priority projects to be funded by the pork barrel is well within Congress’ power of the purse, the Social Justice Society (SJS) has recently filed a case questioning once again the constitutionality of the pork barrel system on the ground that it is an abuse of the power to tax and it has opened the floodgates of corruption. The Janet Napoles case is adding muscles to the SJS crusade.
The yoke of corruption is too heavy a meaningless cross for God’s people to bear. Any piece of legislation that propagates it, no matter how constitutional and valid, must be seriously reconsidered. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM . Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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