Friday, July 18, 2014
15th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Is 38:
1-6,21-22,7-8
Gospel: Matthew 12:1-8
It happened that Jesus walked through the wheat fields on a Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and began to pick some heads of wheat and crush them to eat the grain. When the Pharisees noticed this, they said to Jesus, “Look at your disciples; they are doing what is prohibited on the Sabbath!”
Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did when he and his men were hungry? He went into the house of God, and they ate the bread offered to God, although neither he nor his men had the right to eat it, but only the priests. And have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the Temple break the Sabbath rest, yet they are not guilty?
“I tell you, there is greater than the Temple here. If you really knew the meaning of the words: It is mercy I want, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent.
“Besides the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
Sabbath Laws in the time of Jesus were so strictly implemented that people no longer looked forward to the Day of the Lord as a day of rejoicing but of fear and trembling. The Law declaring the Sabbath Day holy was meant to afford the people time for relaxation and rejoicing in the Lord and ample time to praise and worship Him. But then it turned out to be a heavy yoke oppressing the people.
Today’s Gospel illustrates how oppressive the Sabbath Law was. The disciples were only plucking grains from the fields but they were already accused of harvesting, winnowing, and grinding. Jesus justified his disciples by arguing that the law is never meant to oppress but to facilitate communitarian life. When the Law becomes oppressive it creates chaos. The Law then ceases to be a law because its essence is order. It may involve personal sacrifices from individuals but the net effect should be and environment conducive to living lives to the full.
Jesus placed all the commandments under the umbrella of love when he declared that the greatest of all the commandments is love. This great commandment stands on two legs, namely love of God and love of neighbor. People identify us as belonging to God by the way we love. “They know we are Christians by our love.”
We are heirs of the Commandment of Love. Thank God we don’t have to labor under the old Sabbath Law. We have no problem loving God; our problem lies in loving the neighbor. Let us ask God for the eyes to see him in our fellowmen so that the love we have for Him may make it easy for us to love one another. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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