Today’s Reflection
Gospel: Mt 12: 1-8
July 21, 2023 | Friday

Today’s Gospel

It happened that, Jesus was walking through the wheat fields on a Sabbath. His disciples were hungry; and they began to pick some heads of wheat, to crush and 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, though neither he nor his men had the right to eat it, but only the priests. And have you not read in the law, how, on the Sabbath, the priests in the temple desecrate the Sabbath, 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.”

Today’s Reflection:

In today’s gospel, Jesus’ disciples were hungry. The gospel concerns the disciples’ picking grain on the sabbath and eating it. This act led to a debate, about whether they were allowed to do this on the sabbath, or whether it was a violation since work on Sabbath is forbidden. However, we must know that the disciples are not just casually helping themselves to some grain as they go alone because they were acting out of genuine hunger. When the Pharisees accused them of breaking the sabbath, Jesus defends them, appealing to two incidents in which a legal prohibition yields to a higher necessity. The Sabbath ruling ought to yield in the face of human need, especially hunger. And besides, God did not institute the Sabbath to add burdens to an already over burdened humanity. It is for humanitarian reasons that the rule of the Sabbath was broken. This gospel teaches us the difference between strictly following rules versus becoming humane. What type of person are you, lawcentered or person-oriented?   /Vulnerasti, 2023