Claretian Communications Foundation, Inc.
23RD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
Psalter: Week 3 / (Green/White)
St. Peter Claver, priest
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 5: 5-6, 7, 12: Lead me in your justice, Lord.
1st Reading: 1 Corinthians 5: 1-8
You have become news, with, a case of immorality, and such a case, that is not even found among pagans.
Yes, one of you has taken, as wife, his own stepmother. And you feel proud!
Should you not be in mourning, instead, and expel the one who did such a thing?
For my part, although I am physically absent, my spirit is with you and, as if present, I have already passed sentence on the man who committed such a sin. Let us meet together, you and my spirit, and in the name of our Lord Jesus, and with his power, you shall deliver him to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit be saved in the day of Judgment.
This is not the time to praise yourselves. Do you not know that a little yeast makes the whole mass of dough rise? Throw out, then, the old yeast and be new dough.
If Christ became our Passover, you should be unleavened bread. Let us celebrate, therefore, the Passover, no longer with old yeast, which is sin and perversity; let us have unleavened bread, that is purity and sincerity.
Gospel: Luke 6: 6-11
On another Sabbath, Jesus entered the synagogue and began teaching. There was a man with a paralyzed right hand and the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees watched him: Would Jesus heal the man on the Sabbath? If he did, they could accuse him.
But Jesus knew their thoughts and said to the man, “Get up and stand in the middle.”
Then he spoke to them, “I want to ask you: what is allowed by the Law on the Sabbath, to do good or to do harm, to save life or destroy it?”
And Jesus looked around at them all. Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”
He stretched it out and his hand was restored, becoming as whole as the other. But they were furious and began to discuss with one another how they could deal with Jesus.
REFLECTION:
“Stretch out your hand.”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus restored the life of a man whose right hand was withered.
When Jesus healed the hand of this man, it was the man’s life that was restored in the process. Because the right hand of a person is often the functional hand, we may reflect on the point that it was the very life of the man which Jesus had put back in place.
However, the scribes and Pharisees thought that the timing was bad. It was a Sabbath.
But the Gospel stated that they were motivated by ill will even before Jesus healed the man. They wanted to have a reason to put Jesus down. They did not care about the man. They were preoccupied finding something to accuse Jesus of.
The evil intention of their hearts was revealed by the way they interpreted the Sabbath law.
Jesus clearly unmasked their evil intention when he pointed out what the Sabbath law would allow or prohibit.
The Sabbath would not prohibit doing something good. Healing a person is good and would definitely be allowed on a Sabbath.
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