Goodness has no bounds
Introduction
Ephesians speaks of the qualities of love, as a response to the love shown us in Christ. By living in love we also imitate God. As Christians we are light and should live as children of light.
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?
1 Reading Ephesians 4:32–5:8
Brothers and sisters:
Be kind to one another, compassionate,
forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.
Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love,
as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us
as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.
Immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be mentioned among you,
as is fitting among holy ones,
no obscenity or silly or suggestive talk, which is out of place,
but instead, thanksgiving.
Be sure of this, that no immoral or impure or greedy person,
that is, an idolater,
has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God.
Let no one deceive you with empty arguments,
for because of these things
the wrath of God is coming upon the disobedient.
So do not be associated with them.
For you were once darkness,
but now you are light in the Lord.
Live as children of light.
Responsorial Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6
R. (see Eph. 5:1) Behave like God as his very dear children.
Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.
R. Behave like God as his very dear children.
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers.
R. Behave like God as his very dear children.
Not so the wicked, not so;
they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
For the LORD watches over the way of the just,
but the way of the wicked vanishes.
R. Behave like God as his very dear children.
Alleluia John 17:17b, 17a
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Your word, O Lord, is truth;
consecrate us in the truth.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel Luke 13:10-17
Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath.
And a woman was there who for eighteen years
had been crippled by a spirit;
she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect.
When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said,
“Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.”
He laid his hands on her,
and she at once stood up straight and glorified God.
But the leader of the synagogue,
indignant that Jesus had cured on the Sabbath,
said to the crowd in reply,
“There are six days when work should be done.
Come on those days to be cured, not on the Sabbath day.”
The Lord said to him in reply, “Hypocrites!
Does not each one of you on the Sabbath
untie his ox or his ass from the manger
and lead it out for watering?
This daughter of Abraham,
whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now,
ought she not to have been set free on the Sabbath day
from this bondage?”
When he said this, all his adversaries were humiliated;
and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.
Commentary
This story is proper to Luke. Jesus heals the crippled woman without being asked, as also in 6:8 and 14:4. Sometimes we feel we have to grovel when we ask God for something; we imagine (at some level in our minds) that God wants us to be sniveling menials! But the woman in the story had been groveling for eighteen years until she met Jesus! It was he who enabled her to stand up straight with the unique dignity of a human being. How dramatic a moment! “At once she straightened up and she glorified God.” In what area of your life are you prostrate? In what area can you only see the ground, and a small patch of it at that? Just come near: he is even more eager for your freedom and dignity than you are. But remember, when you can’t because you don’t want, or inhibited by circumstances beyond you, to perform an act of goodness: kindness, please give chance for others who are able or better disposed. Do not grumble at them.
Blessing
On the day of the Lord we intercede as mediators for the great needs of the Church, of the world, and of people in need. It is nice to pray for these intercessions, but may the Lord inspire and empower us to do something effective to relieve these needs, whether on the Lord’s day or any day, with the blessing of almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!